You and me and the devil makes three
by saveusmilkboy
Summary: The Joui war, and the parts Gintoki, Takasugi and Katsura played in it, as told by their captain.
1. Chapter 1

**Join the dying**

"Triage the wounded and the dying," I ordered. "Then get some rest. I'll see to the food." Three of my seventeen men jumped up from their tired slouches and bowed stiffly, hurrying to obey. Fools, I thought bitterly. Why were they listening to me? Why would they rush to decide which of their friends were going to die today just because I told them to?

I turned and began walking slowly to the gate leading me into the old temple we had made our temporary base. Blisters on my feet had blisters of their own, and all of my muscles complained, wailing pitifully with every movement. Still, I had come out lightly. Some scrapes and bruises but no wounds. Just a lot of blood.

I should have stayed with my men and seen to them personally. The captain would have done it, but I was not the captain. The captain was dead. I was just the poor bugger who was next to him when it happened, the one closest to the centre of action. So when I started giving orders, people must have assumed they were still coming from him in those first few, confused moments. Afterwards, there was simply no time for them to argue with me over command.

This is what people called a field promotion. This is what I called a baptism in blood.

Seventeen men, the remnants of our unit, obeyed as they were taught to. Obeyed as though the captain was with us, speaking through me. I looked down my body, still clad in armour. The captain was right there, spilled all over my chest, his brains caught in my collar, his guts staining my fingernails. Did they think blood conveyed will? Maybe they were right. I don't think I could have brought them home, my ragged bunch of seventeen, had it not been for the hot shock of it on my face. Maybe there was something magical about the red liquid after all. Maybe it was the essence of life, the place in which the soul resided. If you touched it, if you drank it, the soul would tell you about itself. If so, the Amanto must have learned all there was to know about us by now…

"Mikkun!"

I reacted to the nickname with confusion and irritation, spinning until I could see two figures crossing the courtyard to greet me.

"Mikkun, you heard the news?" Aizawa approached me with his hand raised in welcome. Behind him, Murakami followed with a limp. His usually frowning face was even sharper around the edges this morning, as though he was only a rough sculpture of himself. I frowned at the crutch he had anchored into his armpit, at the new bandages Aizawa was sporting around his chest. A strong smell of alcohol, puss and urine trailed after them both. They had just been to the death rooms, I realized.

"What news?" I inquired. My voice came out a little bit too harshly. I didn't want to listen to news, I wanted to crawl into a dark hole and disappear, run away into the black warmth.

Aizawa did not seem to mind my lack of courtesy. There was so much bitterness to go around, we barely noticed it spilling over any more. "Newcomers," he explained. "A bunch of men with equipment, some supplies. They just came in this morning, straight from Hagi."

"Hagi? Are you kidding me?" I shouted, grabbing for the sword at my waist as though I could do something with it. "And you let them in?!"

"Itou let them in," Murakami grunted. I steadied myself with difficulty. Aizawa and Murakami were both squadron leaders, the same as me. I was allowed to question them. But Itou was our commander, now that Saigou had left us.

"Nobody comes in from Hagi!" I growled. "They're fucking spies, how did they find us?"

Aizawa shook his head. "Their three leaders have been with the commander for over an hour now. Got here just before word came in you had to backtrack."

Backtrack, huh! Aizawa was a kind man. He would not say, 'you had failed'.

"Nobody comes in from Hagi," I repeated, redundantly. Hagi was scorched earth. The purges had struck hard down there. We had accepted refugees from Hagi in the first months, dragging them along northwards, as we made our slow bid for Edo. But not all the refugees were sympathetic to our plight. Some of them were just normal people who wanted an end to the war. Some were petty criminals, looking to lie low among our ranks. Some of them were just out to make a name for themselves, even if it meant killing a famous rebel. And some were smart little cunts, figuring they could buy forgiveness (and maybe some land and money to go with it) with a head of just such a famous rebel. It was a bad time, those first few months. We had stopped accepting refugees since.

"In any case, all the captains are to come to the temple ASAP," Aizawa continued. "Commander must have made up his mind about them. So we're either looking at an execution, or a welcoming party."

"Oh," I said stupidly. The captain was dead. The first time I tried to say it, no sounds came out of my throat. I only managed to whisper it on the second try. "The captain is dead."

Aizawa looked stricken, Murakami, even more glum. They looked at my breastplate and overcoat, glistening red, and made the connection.

"He made me…" I started. "I mean, I was there…" This was ridiculous. "I am captain now."

"Then better go to the temple," Aizawa said gently. He was not foolish enough to congratulate me.

There were eight of us, captains, lined up along one side of the temple room. In days of old, monks would sit in our places, moving their lips minutely as they offered prayers to the Buddha. I could remember the peaceful, throaty quality of those songs, vibrating in endless suspension, like the sound of creation. Now, there was only one monk who was lending us his home as a temporary base and hospital. He sat at the front of the room, beneath a ruined statue whose cracked, flaking fingers were raised in a sign of peace. There was something intensely ironic about that statue.

Opposite the old monk sat Itou. His back was straight, his grey trousers neat, his hair styled to traditional perfection. After Saigou, who could hardly care for formality, Itou's stern style divided the troops into those who found his rigidity comforting, and those, like me, who found it irritating. Still I supposed it was his way of showing us that there was an axis of constancy in our chaotic war. Even I had to admit that, from afar, Itou seemed as though the world could use him for the hinge upon which it could revolve.

Seating myself, I closed my eyes to several inquisitive looks from the other captains. They knew better than to ask. Itou would do their work for them.

"Mikuni," he called from the room. "Captain Tsunezawa is no longer with us?"

"No, sir."

"He named you?"

I thought about lying just to make things easier for everybody. I couldn't do it. "No, sir. I was merely the closest man when he fell."

"So you took over command?" Itou's nose furrowed to match his disapproving frown.

"Somebody had to lead the retreat," I shrugged then added quickly, "As the Captain ordered."

Itou's furrows loosened. "Very well. How many of you have returned?"

I gulped, looked to the centre of the room, looked to Itou, to the other captains, then back to the centre where three young men sat with their backs to me. To give away our numbers in front of them when they could be spies…

I cleared my throat. "I would rather give you my report in private, Commander."

Itou understood the reason for my hesitation. He shook his head, waving fingers at the three silent figures. "These men have come here to become our new comrades, Mikuni. And the rest of you!" he addressed the other captains. "I am of the mind to allow this. However, we must find places for them in your units, and thus, the captains must have a say."

The proper captains nodded their heads. I sighed, not sure whether that meant Itou had accepted my promotion. I couldn't know what they were talking about during that one hour the Commander had questioned them, but it must have been to the old man's liking for he allowed them to keep their swords. I eyed the lacquered scabbards suspiciously. They were dented and chipped here and there, but I could tell they were well cared for. The same went for the newcomers' clothes which were clearly worn out, their colours faded and grey, yet they were carefully patched and clean.

"Young men though they are, they understand the critical times in which we live. Understand that if we do not stand up now to protect this land and its people, there will never be a second chance. They have travelled from Hagi with twelve others to seek us out," Itou was saying. "They hail from the school of Yoshida Shouyou."

There were appreciative gasps around the room. I did not join in. "Yoshida's school was burned to the ground," I said loudly.

One of the men from the centre of the room turned abruptly, with the agility of a cat. His eyes found mine. They were green and venomous, stealing my breath as effectively as though he had struck a blow to my chest. The man smirked darkly, satisfied with my reaction, and looked away while I continued to stare, hypnotised. My eyebrows collapsed into a tense frown, and I carefully closed my parted mouth. At first I thought what I had seen in his face was rage and bloodlust. Then I realized it had been pain; bottomless pain. The other two did not move.

He is young, I thought. He is so terribly young. He will die that young.

"What Mikuni says is true. The school was destroyed, the students dispersed," Hashimoto was saying from across the room. He was an older and experienced warrior, and a contender for the position of Commander. He fixed the newcomers with steely, grey eyes. "Or were slaughtered."

Mumbles erupted around the room.

"And, besides, the students were all children," another captain pitched in. I could not tell which one, but I thought, yes, and the children are here now. I looked at the green-eyed one's back once again. His rigid posture belied what I had glimpsed in his gaze. From the back he looked like a man.

Hashimoto nodded. "Yoshida himself was taken hostage." More mumbles followed his statement.

"Do you think I have not questioned them about such things?" Itou cut over Hashimoto, somewhat irritably.

"I have no doubt you have, sir. However, my concern is…" Hashimoto faltered, obviously changing his mind about his phrasing. "It is such a convenient story, commander, that I cannot help but doubt it. Is there any sort of proof these men may present to us?"

"Their supposed teacher is imprisoned, their school is ash," I murmured. "There is no proof."

Itou frowned. "I was convinced by their words, and their motives," he announced ceremonially. "But if my captains express doubt, then my captains may question them."

One of the young men shifted in his seat nervously. I could only see his long black hair falling half-way down his back. It looked a little bit worse for the wear, but very soft, shiny. Womanly, really.

"My Lord Itou," he addressed the Commander. "Lords captains. What you say is true. Shouka Sonjuku was burned to the ground, most of the students were dispersed. We are all that remain. Master Shoyou," his voice trembled barely perceptibly when he continued, "was indeed taken. We can offer no witnesses, no records, no official seals. Then again, if we could, would you suspect us any less?"

There was a hush over the room. I stared at the three, pondering what the long-haired one had said. Indeed, a man claiming the truth does not think he would be doubted, while a liar must always assume so. Spies would have most likely come with some sort of proof ready to hand.

Having given us time to reflect, the man continued speaking. His voice was surprisingly cultured for a kid from the countryside, and a poor one to boot. Yoshida was famous for inviting anybody whatsoever to become samurai, not just kids from samurai families. "The proof you seek is in the doing, not in the saying. We only ask you the opportunity to do."

"The risk is also in the doing," Hashimoto said. "You are asking us to risk." I could hear his tone acquire that note of academism it was sometimes want to. Hashimoto used to run a dojo, and thus always treated his soldiers as though they were students. I knew well – I used to be one. I also knew that there was a gentle edge in that academism. The long-haired one was getting under his skin.

"The risk is, if you will forgive me, greater for us than it is for you," the young man retorted. "We may only betray you. You may shame us."

The silence was absolute once more as the captains digested this. Itou's mouth escaped upwards a bit. He looked at Hashimoto, who was staring at the floor. Then he nodded a very tiny nod. That was it; no matter what the other captains said, Hashimoto and Itou agreed, and the three stray dogs would stay. I found myself wondering what their names were. Then I frowned at myself. Idiot! I did not want to know their names. I did not want to know their faces, their histories, their ages. I did not want to know their bodies, lest they spill their red souls all over me. The others had not seen what I had seen; not the youth, not the honest intensity of that pain, not the crazy edge to it. These boys may not have been spies, but they were not soldiers either!

"This is all very beautiful," I said, mouth running away with me before I could stop myself. "But can they fight? How long? I returned with seventeen men, Commander. Seventeen of the fifty five Captain Tsunezawa had started out with, and there is no telling how many of the wounded will make it through the night. How many could have been saved if I had three men who could swing their blades with purpose? How many had been lost because I had three who could not?"

"I invite you to test my swing. Captain," the green-eyed one spoke up without looking at me. His voice was chilled. This time I heard his rage very clearly. He had not moved towards the black scabbard next to his thigh, but I could tell he knew where it was, knew how quickly he could draw it.

"Calm down, Takasugi," said the long-haired one, turning towards his companion. This one was young as well, his profile smooth and clean. I could imagine features being carved away from that pretty face with terrible ease. He would die too…

"This is not a refuge for strays who seek revenge," I told him coolly. "If you have the stupid wish to die for your country, go and find it elsewhere. Here, I need men who are willing to live for it."

Some of the captains nodded, some of them looked at me in disgust. Itou grunted. Hashimoto said nothing.

The green-eyed one, Takasugi, stood up, hands already slinging the sword into his belt. "Let's go, Zura. These men," he made the phrase sound like an insult. "Are not what we are looking for. Besides, I told you. We don't need armies."

"Sit back down," the long-haired one – Zura? What sort of name was that? – told him. "We cannot fight alone. We cannot-"

"Men who would live for the country?"

It took me a moment to realize it was the third man who had said that, the one who had been sitting by silently. Now that he had spoken up, I found myself wondering how in the world I had not noticed him before. His hair was scruffy, sticking out at odd angles, and prematurely white. No, I realized. It was silver. He slipped out of the formal pose with a grunt, one hand stabbing the ground behind him to rest his upper body on it lazily. He turned his face to me and gazed at me with half-lidded eyes.

"Bullshit," he continued, voice slow and deliberate. "If you think you're living for anything, something's gone wrong under that stylish turd on your head. You're killing. You ain't living for a single fucking thing."

"Gintoki!" Zura protested, sounding exasperated.

"I've been around delusional morons my whole life. I can smell one coming from a mile away," Gintoki went on in that bored tone. "So I guess some of you really are killing for the country. That's fine. I don't mind delusional morons. As for me, I couldn't give the first fuck for the country, or the Shogunate, or the bushido. They all belong on the same pile, as far as I am concerned, and if you haven't realized that yet no amount of living for it, or dying for it, or killing for it can make a difference, I promise you. But I'll tell you something else…" Something happened in his eyes, and it was forcing me to look at him. Not just me, I realized vaguely. Everyone was staring at him, and it seemed he returned each man's gaze with equal intensity, as though he was looking into their souls. It was bearing us, making us feel naked. Just as I thought I could stand his stare no longer, he turned it the ceiling.

"If you need three men who would kill to save even one of those delusional morons, bring them back here to live for the country, we'll swing whatever you want, swords, cats, hips, or dicks."

It took me a moment to shake off the white noise in my head. I could not tell how long it had been since he had stopped speaking. The only thing I knew was that maybe, just maybe, this one would not die.

Maybe, just maybe, neither will anyone else in this room. Anyone else in this temple. Anyone at all.

A chuckle woke me up. It was the monk, silently seated beneath the ruined statue. We looked at him in surprise but he said nothing else, raising a hand to apologize for his outburst. Takasugi was still standing in the middle of the room, but his shoulders were not rigid, and the hand that had come to rest against the hilt of this sword was relaxed. Zura too had unstrung the taut bow in his back. His hair had come around his face, hiding it and whatever expression was there.

I looked to Itou. I had expected him to shout in indignation, to stand on principle. Instead he smiled, merely saying, "Shall we put it to the vote?"

It was not unanimous. Four captains voted against accepting the new recruits. After a moment, I voted yes. So did Hashimoto. In the end, it came down to Itou, who gave his 'aye' without hesitation.

"Well, then. That settles it," the Commander spoke. "Katsura Kotarou. Takasugi Shinsuke. Sakata Gintoki. I welcome you to the Joui faction."

 _Second attempt at publishing this. Because I failed epically the first time around._

 _This is what I have been doing while I was not writing my other story on Fanfiction... or my job. Apart from this, I was writing porn for my own personal consumption._

 _I am a crazy fan of Gintama - have been for, erm, ten years now, actually. Usually, when I write fanfiction for it, I either end up with something quite comedic and sexy, or something quite dark and nihilistic. In this story, I tried to capture some of that wonderful hope that Sorachi has in abundance, which is never mushy and sentimental. It is sometimes painful, and resigned, and humorous, and noble, and foolish, but it is always awe inspiring to me. Hopefully, I manage to convey some of that._

 _This chapter was full of dialogue, and I hate writing dialogue. It only rarely comes out right, shyly, like a badger comes out of its burrow. The next one is all action, I promise. (I would sell my soul for a ghost dialogue-writer. That way I could only do the fun bits...)_


	2. Chapter 2

**The ridge**

"Watch the flank!" I was shouting. "Watch the right flank!"

"Captain! The line!" someone hollered in my ear.

I spun my head wildly around. A bullet zipped past my temple and buried into the ground behind me. There! The line was breaking to my left. "Central line, fall in to the left! To the left!"

But it was too late. The right flank was folding, the left line was already a gaping hole and large, ox-like Amanto were breaking through with eager grimaces on their ugly faces.

"Retreat! Formation, formation, quickly," I screamed. I snaked my arm around one man, I had no idea who he was, and jerked him backwards. The front line started to implode in a more or less orderly fashion, fighting off the offensive while skipping backwards thought the knee-deep mud. We were being pelted by bullets. The ground exploded into flowers of dust and shrapnel on all sides of us. They were aiming too low, merely herding us rather than hitting us, but they would get a better lock on in a moment, I knew as much. We needed to get away. I looked around wildly. I was missing the right flank. The whole right flank was cut off. At least twenty men. Who was in charge of the right flank? I couldn't remember.

"Captain, take us to the ridge!"

"What?" We were retreating upwards and to the right, towards the forest.

"The ridge, captain!"

I finally realized who was talking to me. Katsura's young face was soiled and his hair matted to his forehead. His armour was slick with dirt, and his overcoat splattered with all the juices of the battlefield. His voice was the same as always, however, even and cultured.

"Are you mad?" my other lieutenant, Kuramoto, shouted back. "They'll drive us downhill in seconds!"

"Grenade!" the scream disturbed our conversation.

All of us hit the ground rolling blindly in different directions. There was a zip when the projectile buried into the earth, followed by a smack of thunder. My hearing was hollowed out by it, echoes of the world spinning somewhere at the centre of my head. The man I had been dragging on my shoulder was lying halved next to me. They'd fixed their aim, the bastards.

"Shit," I hiccoughed, and got to my feet. "Formation! We need to get out of range now!"

"Go to the forest!" Kuramoto, still alive, was shouting, "Now, Captain!"

I ignored him. "To me! All to me!"

We regrouped in the nick of time, moving upwards as quickly as possible. The oxen clashed against us. Kuramoto was on my left, slashing and hacking without grace or form. Katsura was three men down, dripping blood from his ear and doing the same.

I wished for a moment to think. I wished I could see the right flank. Who had been leading them? If we went to the forest, the standing order was to disperse. The right flank would be as good as dead. And we had done so well! We had managed to blow up the enemy's depot, a whole shipment of weapons and supplies! The main forces under Itou had provided a diversion several miles to the East while we punched a back door, letting Takasugi blaze through the building with his commandos.

My blade caught one Amanto right along the neck. He gurgled with a stunned expression on his unhandsome face, and fell onto me. I stumbled backwards. One of my men supported me, and together we shook the ox off and over to his comrades. I felt pain in my side. Someone had caught me across the ribs.

"Fuck!" I hissed and pushed out my arm in vengeance. It was decision time! We couldn't engage the enemy any longer. Either they will break our line here, or they will retreat and let the artillery pelt us. Our only hope was to push them off long enough to make for the forest. It was a slight incline downwards. We would be quick.

But if they caught us there, we would be dead. Quickly.

I looked at the ridge, weighing out options. It was the highest point on our side of the battlefield and for the moment shielded from their long guns. It was a better place to push them off, but if the Amanto wrestled us from it, they would have taken the higher ground, and we would be dead. Even more quickly.

These were both bad options. I had learned early on that command was all about choosing between bad options.

Katsura was in my ear all of a sudden, as though he had read my mind. "Captain, please. Trust me, take us to the ridge."

I nodded, and hollered, "UP! Up, you bastards, let's go!" The shout broke over my men's heads like the crack of the whip and they began moving immediately.

I don't know why I had listened to Katsura. It must have been the hope that I would see my right flank from there. If nothing else, the Amanto were at least as surprised by my decision as I was myself, and this allowed us to take out another half a dozen of their big bruisers in the general shuffle. We heard them screaming out commands in that ugly, harrumphing language. I stretched my sword arm out left and right. My ribs gave a painful yelp and I had to force down a sudden urge to vomit, but at least my blade had connected to the underbelly of one ugly fucker. Alien guts spilled over my feet. While his friends stared in horror, Katsura took their heads off in a blitzing move.

"Captain," he pulled me up by my arm. Unfortunately, it was on the same side as my wounded ribs. I shuddered, head spinning from pain, and felt a spurt of blood warm my belly.

"Let's go! Go, go, go!" I insisted, as though these were the only words I knew.

My men started at a dead run and we were at the top with enough time to reform the line. Kuramoto and Katsura shouted out the standard commands while I continued to stretch my neck, looking for my other survivors. It was impossible to spot anybody. The wind had turned and thick smoke was enveloping us. It stunk of burning plastic, melting polymers, scorched gasoline. I smirked happily, observing our handiwork – the patchwork of destruction we had left in our wake. A giant pillar, one of the huge vertical harbours for their airships, was smouldering rubble. Takasugi had done well.

Eat that, you alien cunts, I thought. If I die here, it would have been a good death.

Off to the East, I could just see the dust of Itou's troops. They were on the retreat, their duties done. The forest boiled here and there from stray projectiles, encircling the battlefield like a receding hairline. Our forces were disappearing into it. Within moments, they would be gone, untraceable to the alien's technology, and hidden in the mountains.

All except the dead.

All except us.

Katsura was next to me, straining his neck. It finally occurred to me who had been commanding the right flank.

"Katsura," I began but words failed me. I wanted to tell him that it was all going to be alright. Then I wanted to tell him that if he had brought us here on some wild hope that his friend would see us on the ridge and rejoin us, he was a god damned fool. But Katsura hadn't brought us here, I had. I swallowed. "Fall in line."

"Yes, sir," he said.

"Everyone, fall in line! We will break the pursuers here and make for the forest as planned. They won't have the long guns on us for a while more!"

There was a grunt of acquiescence and grim determination. Kuramoto looked at me doubtfully, but his sword was steady in his hand. On my right side, Katsura was focused, young face serious.

"We have the high ground!" an encouraging scream rang out from my left.

"We have the cover of smoke!" I supplied. The men replied with a low "Ooh!" A resigned "Ooh!" I frowned.

"We are demons in the mist," someone else harrumphed.

The answer was louder this time, and closer to a jeer. I chuckled, but it was a hollow laugh. We could not see the oxen pursuing us and it was making us all nervous. They should have been on us already. We were losing momentum. I looked at Katsura. His eyebrows were drawn low onto his eyes. I had never noticed that they had a little bit of green in them. I wondered what would become of them by the time we were done here. Fuck!

"We are the rancheros, hoarding cattle!" another jeer came in. We laughed harder. "Out to make burgers!"

"Hellfire, I could do with a burger."

"A samurai does not eat burgers, you arse."

I missed Sakata. He would have immediately asked whether samurai eat pussy. His eyes were a weird burgundy. Where were they now? We could hear a thudding of footsteps but they were slow and deliberate, not the onslaught I was expecting and hoping for.

"Fucking hell," I hissed. The Amanto were smart and stopped to reorganize their troops before coming for us. They too understood the lay of the land. They understood that we had the high ground but that we were also cornered. They could take their time. The main forces had escaped them, but they would take out the hard-core guerrillas instead. We were a consolation prize.

And I had made a terrible mistake.

Kuramoto's eyes ran from me to Katsura. His defeated anger scalded me bitterly. The footsteps approached us securely, their rhythmic stomp telling me all I could not see. Smart, methodical sons of bitches!

"We have the moment," the shouts continued. We didn't, not really, but I joined in the "Ooh!" just for the sake of it.

"We have the mouth of hell at our backs!"

We so did. "Ooh!"

"We have the cock of hell up our asses!" a third shout sounded out, but I heard defiance in it.

"Whatever floats your boat!" someone heckled him.

"To each their own, Sakai!" another put in and my front line laughed.

Bullets started zipping past us. They struck some men on the far left. I could hear their screams. The Amanto could still not make us out completely but they were close, and the smoke was thinning.

"Formation! Shields together, shoulder to shoulder!" I bellowed.

The reply was another unison "OOH!" and this time it was loud and powerful. The way it was when we trained together.

A bullet passed by my right leg, scorching through a centimetre of skin, fat and muscle. I barely felt it. I gazed at Katsura and he was smiling serenely. The smoke was receding, and we could see the horns of our enemies. For a moment, the reminded me of the ancient helmets – the beautiful lacquered masks the samurai had worn in days of old. A peace came over me, and I realized something I had forgotten in this endless tag-game we were playing for our lives.

"We won today," I whispered. Then I said it more loudly. "We won today."

Kuramoto looked at me. His bitterness lifted and I saw him smile as well. "We won today," he repeated. "We won today!"

"We won!" the shout spread through the line like wildfire. "We won today! WE WON TODAY!"

"NOW FIGHT! Forward!"

At my command, the front line dove downwards a few metres from the top of the ridge to where the oxen had been joined by other Amanto races. They were ready for us, and we clashed over their shields like a wave did against the rock. They outnumbered us at least three to one, but I could not think about that. All I could think was the movement of the man to my left and the man to my right. My whole world was the music of our whistling blades, the meaty thuds of our shields, the lustful sighs of our breaths. My purpose was to find harmony in it, like a conductor did in an orchestra, so that I may kill.

We would die here today. The Amanto were too smart. They did not go after us immediately; they did not rush us while we had the forward momentum. Instead, they took their time to regroup and then waited for us to realize we would not be able to escape. Our enemy was too many, and too powerful. They must have thought despair would take our determination, and that they would be able to push us over the ridge as though we were little more than clay figurines.

I laughed wildly, plunging a blind sword into the wall of enemy meat. For all the blood they had drunk, they did not understand the first thing about us. They did not understand samurai.

They did not understand humans.

The man next to me stumbled. I pulled him up by the scruff of the neck and he protected my arm from a vicious sabre slash. Behind me, Kuramoto had jumped up, launching himself off of somebody's shield, and he pierced the Amanto line with a scream. I saw him whirl the blade around, cutting three in a single strike. The bullet that went through his chest was an insult to his bravery.

"Aaargh!" I yelled, throat hoarse. "Get him! Get him back!" It was a ridiculous order, but I wanted Kuramoto's body on my side of the line. We were dead anyways, so why not!

Katsura jumped up with me. Shoulders to the enemy shields, we punched a path between two large baboon-looking Amanto. They stumbled and our line swallowed them up behind us. Katsura cut straight through a third alien and slashed the chest of a fourth, while I pulled at Kuramoto and managed to sling him over my back. We stepped back into line. Someone stabbed at me but missed. The serrated blade hacked at Kuramoto's thigh instead. He screamed, still alive.

Well, he won't be for long. We were at the tip of the ridge now, the valley stretching just behind us. The smoke had cleared. I knew that in a few seconds, the Amanto would have recalibrated their long guns and we would be showered by bullets, forced downhill into the kill-zone. With Itou's forces gone, they might have even decided to reposition the heavy artillery and destroy us in one go. Two, three explosions at most and we would be minced meet, buried along with our flattened ridge.

Katsura hissed next to me. That same serrated blade had drawn a deep line down his sword arm.

"Yaaah!" he screamed. He feigned a retreat, drew the Amanto in, and stepped to the side with such speed I could barely follow him. His blade fell onto the alien's back heavily, burying into the spine. I protected his flank from a vengeful strike and then waited for the follow up, but none came.

They were retreating. This was it. Their main forces would begin the slaughter with the long guns now.

"This is it!" I shouted at Katsura. "We should make for the woods. Those who make it, make it."

"No," Katsura said. "Wait."

I shook my head. "Everyone who can walk, everyone who can run. Run for it!"

Even as I had said it, I knew I would not run. Somebody had to guard the rear. I was captain. But the others were soldiers. They did not need to die here. Only I needed to die here.

Nobody moved.

"Run, you stupid cunts!" I shouted. "RUN NOW! That's an order, god damn it!"

"NO!" Katsura screamed. "Captain, please, wait."

I sighed. "Katsura, they're not com-,"

And then I heard it. Screaming. It was not our men screaming, because the skirmishes were dying across the line as the Amanto fell back downhill. Where the screaming was coming from.

The smoke that had covered us had also fallen back downhill, but as it continued to slither further, the scene before me began to reveal itself. I squinted at it. The Amanto were all squinting the same way.

A handful of men – my men, my right flank! – were there, progressing quickly uphill. They were cutting through the Amanto line like a hot knife through butter.

No, they were not cutting through it. One man was cutting through it. The others merely finished off the leftovers, running to keep up with him.

Sakata's white overcoat was red, brown and black, like an abstract flag on his back. His hair was matted and rust-coloured with dried blood. His sword blinked in and out of existence as it cut through bone and metal, flesh and armour, skin and cloth. I stared with my mouth hanging open stupidly. The men following him shouted and grunted in a syncopated rhythm. I could hear them over the Amanto's screams. Sakata, meanwhile, did not make a sound.

More and more of the Amanto turned to try and stop the impossible onslaught. They condensed the line against them, forcing Sakata to slow down and the other men to fan out around him.

"Captain," I heard Katsura say urgently.

I pushed my sword into the air, ribs giving another pang, and shouted, "ATTACK!"

The answering call was so loud I heard nothing else for hours. My hearing only returned to me in the forest, shielded from view by the trees. Still alive.

 _I have been reading a lot of Bernard Cornwell lately and his Saxon stories set in 9th century Britain (bear with me, this has something to do with Gintama, I promise!), and his descriptions of battles leave me breathless and gasping loudly on the metro. I am already used to people looking at me as though I am one lipstick disaster from becoming the Joker, but Cornwell writes such vivid, accurate, dynamics descriptions that you feel as though you are there, panting in the shield wall. I wanted some of that in the Joui war (there, I told you I would circle back to Gintama eventually)._

 _I took liberties with the way samurai really fought battles, but hey! Sorachi takes liberties with everything else already._

 _I am uncertain whether to continue this story or not. On the one hand, I feel this is standalone as it is. On the other hand, inspiration might strike, and I could write a third, even fourth chapter. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on the subject. Cheers._


	3. Chapter 3

**The Whiteout**

Icy sleet pelted our gaunt faces while wet, muddy snow bit us about the ankles. It wailed and squeaked pitifully beneath our feet. The cold seeped through, soaking into fabric, finding ways between layers of cloth. Straw mats we had fashioned into coats were heavy on our backs, bending us closer to the ground. Some of the men had pilfered raincoats and armour from the fallen Amanto, but judging from their unhappy expressions, those were hardly an improvement. From the skies, we must have looked like mouldy mushrooms scattered over the forest floor. I certainly felt like a mushroom, damp, crooked and rank.

"I hate winter," somebody grunted. I was tempted to tell them to shut their face. Nobody liked winter when they had to march miles and miles through it, while snow went from slush to rock-hard shards of –

I was saved the trouble. "And I hate whiny bitches, but such is life." It was Sakata, bless him.

"Yeah, shut the hell up, man," others agreed.

"We're all miserable. Suck it up."

"Suck what now?"

"Wouldn't mind if you were up for it, friend!"

I barked a tired laugh with a few others. The complainant mumbled something in protest, but it was drowned out by another violent gust of wind. My men groaned, lowering their heads and pushing onward, feet burying deeper into the freezing muck. I squinted at the horizon to reassure myself of our bearings. This was, after all, my homeland. I had promised my soldiers a place to stay, and so I would deliver. First, we needed to get off the mountain, though. We had camped on its southern side last night. It had been chilly, but not too terrible. However, now that we were on the north-western slopes, the capricious autumn that had caressed us with its golden light and sweet smell, turned into a vengeful, young winter. The temperature was falling rapidly and the sky was a uniform grey, not a break between the clouds anywhere in sight. The snow was becoming steadily thicker and drier, piling up quickly. Damn. I knew we had at least another three hours before I could give my tired five-dozen a roof over their heads. My only hope was that the whiteout threatening us held out until we reached it.

I shrugged my shoulder straps more securely on. Pots, pans, weapons, and other assorted pieces of luggage jingled in response. Behind me, other jingles echoed the sentiment eagerly. We were all tired, sure, but we were doing fine. Our spirits were high. I was careful about optimism, habitually quite sceptical of good luck and fair weather, but it was difficult to deny the recent upturn in our fortunes. We were doing fine, we were doing better than I had ever thought. We were doing! As if on cue, I heard murmuring, humming, a half-recognized melody. Then someone started singing,

" _Deer will hardly make a sound_

" _Since the ground is mossy._

" _Sure they move with grace and all,_

" _But smell a lot like pu-_ "

Men snorted while the singer stretched the syllable, banging an expectant rhythm on his armour until a comrade picked it up,

" _Pu-shing forward through the snow,_

" _I wish for four warm walls,_

" _Maybe for a pretty girl,_

" _Who would lick my ba-_ " More laughter punctured the wheezing wind as the drumming became louder.

" _Ba-king in the sunlight_

" _Is hardly any better._ " I sniggered, recognizing the voice and corresponding Southern accent. It was the newcomer, the merchant's son. Sugimoto or Sakaguchi or something.

" _Still I think that summer heat,_

" _Makes the ladies we-_ "

" _We—ather does not worry me,_

" _I might have caught a tick!_ " Sakata took over, predictably off key.

" _And while you're there to check it out,_

" _Won't you suck my di-_ "

Everybody joined in now. " _Dee—eer will hardly make a sound, since the ground is mossy…_ _ **[1]**_ "

"Captain!" I turned to see Takasugi lengthen his stride to catch up with me. As he passed Katsura, he gave him a teasing bump against the shoulder. His friend grunted, stumbling under the weight of his luggage, and Takasugi smirked.

I waited for him to fall into step with me.

"Sir," he greeted me with a half-bow.

"Not sure if you should call me that anymore. Captain."

Takasugi tried to look less smug than he felt but I saw a smile escape onto his thin lips. "It would feel weird if I didn't," he said honestly.

I eyed his dark uniform suspiciously – the one he had chosen for himself. It seemed somewhat ominous, winking at me from underneath a stolen Amanto coat. Ever since we destroyed that aircraft harbour (a Terminal, I heard it had been called) in Mino[2] two months ago, Itou had made his commandos a permanent fixture, and installed Takasugi as their captain. Which made the question of who commanded whom right now even more questionable than usual. Takasugi was a strange one, with his flashing green eyes, his magnetic arrogance, and his prickly sense of humour. I was still not sure I liked him at all.

I nodded. "What's on your mind?"

"What's our bearing?" Figures he didn't come up here to chat.

Sighing, I pointed to the front where the spruce forest became thinner and the snow knee-deep. "We go Sou'-Sou'-west for another hour and a half. Two hours in this shit," I corrected myself moodily.

"And then?"

"Straight downhill until I say stop."

Takasugi pondered. "Once we clear the forest, we should take a rest and put a sentry up front to scout ahead. Sir."

I shook my head. "No stopping. This storm'll only get worse. We need to move fast. Besides, the trees will cover us all the way."

"All the way to where exactly?" he had to shout over another gust of wind.

I mulled words over in my mouth. "There's an old manor house. It's been abandoned."

Takasugi's narrow nose furrowed suspiciously. "Is it safe?"

"As safe as anywhere. There's water and a small village off the beaten track where we can get food, supplies. We can lay low for the worst of the winter. Slip back up the mountain if we need to."

He shook his head. "A village? We can't trust the villagers."

"They won't go to the Shogunate."

"How can you be sure?"

"It was my village."

I stared stubbornly ahead even as snow showered my face like icy shrapnel. We walked on in silence, the song of our comrades having dissolved into friendly banter. I had learned since their arrival that, while most of Yoshida's students were indeed country rubes and motherless slum dogs, Takasugi and Katsura were the exception to the rule, both the scions of wealthy samurai families. Hence, I knew that when I told him it was my village, Takasugi understood that I did not simply mean this was the village of my birth, but that it was truly _my_ village. Mine by right of inheritance.

Takasugi ran a hand over his hair, shaking ice and snow from it. "Where are we anyway? Are we still in Hida[3]?" He had not asked how long it has been since I last visited my home, or why I knew the house would be abandoned. I could not tell whether this was politeness, gentleness or disinterest on his part. Whatever it was, I was grateful for it.

"No. We passed into Shinano[4] a while ago." Waving my hand about, I painted the horizon we could not see for the storm had thickened over it like curdled milk. "But these are still the Hida mountains. To the South of us is Norikura. To the North are Hotaka and Yarigadake."

"Hmmm," Takasugi pretended to know what I was talking about.

I chuckled. "You're a Nagato boy, aren't you? More of a seaman, less of a highlander."

"I suppose you could say that, sir," he shrugged. "Still. It's good to know the lay of the land. In case we have to backtrack over it without you."

This was why I did not like Takasugi. He was so very fucking nonchalant about people dying sometimes. He had a point, though, I had to admit. "Aizawa knows his way around," I nodded over my shoulder. Somewhere at the very back was my old school mate, now one of my lieutenants, guarding the rear with his squadron. "And I am sure we could find a few more men from this region among us."

Takasugi nodded. "Yeah, we have rather grown in number since the victory in Mino. Commander Hashimoto is, erm, cautiously pleased, I think he had put it. He was your master, was he not?"

I frowned. "Hashimoto is not Commander."

Takasugi gave a maddeningly knowing smirk. "Well, actually, Itou is thinking of upgrading himself into a general, now that we finally look like an actual army. Which means promotions will likely be happening all around." He snorted, eyes glinting sharply. "Not that rank means very much right at the moment. Nothing but how many deaths you are directly responsible for."

For a moment, I thought he was being coy, but I realized that was not it. His habitual aggressive smirk was betrayed by hidden insecurity in his narrowed eyes. "It's good that you see it that way."

Takasugi nodded carefully. Yes, good, I thought. Good that he understood that in wartime, prestige meant duty, and command ultimately meant guilt. I felt a stretching in my face and realized, with a lag, that it was an approving smile. Crap, I was turning into Hashimoto! Then I considered again the man before me. He had the self-awareness to know he was young and green as well as the cold reason to know what that meant. The angry pain I had seen in him before was honed to a point now that he was given purpose, and I began to see the wisdom of Itou's decision to make him captain. He would do well, yes.

"Hashimoto was my master," I sad, rather gently. "I attended his school against my father's wishes, though. He wanted me to stay in house, train with his retainers."

Takasugi chuckled. "Hah!" He saw me raise my eyebrows inquiringly, and seemed as though he would continue to speak. Then a rather melodious voice carried over the wind.

" _My feet are chaffed, my muscles sore,_

" _From this awful muck._

" _I don't know how to say this but_

" _Ma'am, I'd like to fu-_ "

Takasugi and I both turned in disbelief. It was Katsura. He had finally come up with a rhyme.

"I don't believe it," Aizawa shook his head, gasping for breath from laughter.

"You didn't hear him, I did! He was right behind me," I insisted.

"Tell me again!"

"Erm," I tried to recall. "My feet are chaffed, my muscles…"

"Sore!" he supplied.

"Sore from this awful muck. I don't know how to say this but, ma'am, I'd like to fuck."

Aizawa rolled backwards, cackling. I refilled both of our cups with rice brandy. We hadn't eaten properly for a week, and this was the first alcohol we have had in months. Naturally we jumped on it like moths into a flame. I felt telltale warmth crawl up my arms, robbing them of sensation along with speed, strength, precision... Stop it, I told myself. Stop it for tonight!

"Ma'am, I'd like to fuck, mercy! Oh, sorry, thanks," Aizawa nodded graciously when I pushed the cup before him but soon we dissolved into sniggering once more. "Ma'am, I'd like to…" I couldn't help but laugh with him.

"Honestly, sir," Katsura sat a few paces away from us, surrounded by a small group. "How is that even still funny? Hasn't it been enough already?" I had to give him credit; he managed to sound polite even as Sakata and a few others murmured the song under their breaths but I could see his jaw work.

Aizawa waved at him joyfully. "You are a loss to poetry, son."

"Any particular ma'am to whom you'd like to dedicate your verse, lieutenant?" I couldn't resist. Katsura's friends buzzed with renewed glee.

"No, sir," he mumbled.

Takasugi threw an arm around Katsura's shoulders, "Now, Zura, you might as well tell them about… Gintoki, what was that woman called?"

Sakata wriggled fingers for the merchant boy – that Saka-something – to pass the pitcher of alcohol to him. "What woman?"

"The one from the village. Zura's-"

"My name is not-" Katsura began but was cut off.

"Oooh, yeah," Sakata sounded enlightened. "Eerm, her name was… Fuck, I can't remember. Naaaa- oko? Nami? Naaaa-"

"Her name was Ayana, you fuckwad!" Katsura shouted. His perfect diction and cool composure were finally slipping. Takasugi, Sakata, and the rest exploded into giggles.

"Who was this Ayana?" Aizawa wanted to know.

"It doesn't matter!" Katsura insisted, throwing his head back and gulping down an imprudently large mouthful of alcohol.

"She was the, eeh, rope maker's… mother?" Takasugi scratched his forehead.

"Nah, she was the fishmonger's grandmother," Sakata pondered out loud.

"She was the blacksmith's wife!" Katsura screamed as more heads turned towards us with interested grins. "And you two assholes were right there panting after her with me, so don't pretend like - "

"So you like the older lady once in a while?" Aizawa surmised sheepishly. "I wouldn't have guessed it."

I, who had had Katsura pegged as a boy-lover[5], held my tongue and chuckled into my cup of alcohol.

"Once in a long while," Takasugi put in, balling tobacco to stuff into his pipe.

"Long, looooong while, right, Zura?" Sakata leered.

"M'name's not, Zura," Katsura hiccoughed. "M'name, is, Katsura! Assholes."

"Oh, that's right! What did she call you?" Takasugi clamped his shoulder but looked to Sakata who was merely shaking his head, laughing. "She had a name for you. Wait, what was it, it was precious…"

"Shinsuke, I swear…" Katsura's hand bunched up in Takasugi's collar and he made to stand up but managed only to bob more severely on his axis. It was becoming clear that he could be quite a mean drunk.

"A nickname? Really?" Aizawa gave me a look with his eyebrows raised, and I replied with an awed whistle.

"It wasn't sugarplum…" Takasugi indulged us, lighting the pipe. "Cocoapuff? Snugglefluff?"

"Cockmuffin," Sakata suggested, pouring for Aizawa and myself. "Prickbunny. No?"

"I can see what you are, doing," Katsura squeezed out. "It's not gonna work!"

"Honeyballs?" Saka-something gave an educated guess. I could tell why Sakata liked him.

"You stay out of this!"

"Sweetiestick?"

"Cumfairy! Cumfairy, I'm sure of it!"

"Why is it you two asses get along only when you gang up on me?" Katsura wanted to know. His friends shrugged.

"Don't be so hard on my lieutenant," I told Takasugi. "He knows women are like fine wine. Better when aged."

"Nah, it's not even about age. Zura likes them married and inaccessible," Sakata giggled, sloshing some of the rice brandy over the floor mats. He mopped the wet spot with his sleeve. I stared at it distractedly. I had been surprised how well everything in the mansion was holding up. The mats had been stowed away carefully and were neither dusty nor mouldy. The roof was patched, its ducts cleared. Someone in the village was taking care of the place.

The merchant boy joined in with a spurt of laughter. "Not enough danger in your life, so you wanna run after other men's women? I approve, Zura, but it's a pretty extreme sport."

"Don't you call me Zura as well, you little fart weasel!"

"Fart weasel! That was it!" Sakata proclaimed. "That's what she called you!"

The whole room echoed with jeers, and the sound suddenly struck me mute. Twenty years ago, this was what it had been like. When I was a boy, and the mansion was full of my father's retainers, drinking as we were, teasing each other as we were, lounging about as we were, this was what the air had smelled like, and this was what the brandy had tasted like. I shook my head at Aizawa's questioning gaze, dragging myself back into present time. The merchant's son laughed loudest, his rather rich voice bouncing off the walls in a syncopated rhythm.

"Well then, what about you, newbie?" I addressed him. "You get any with that mophead?"

"Ca'tain, really? Did ya really have to bring that up?" Sakata gave me a pleading look, his own unruly locks falling to his eyes. Takasugi sniggered, delighted that both of his friends were being needled now. Smoke escaped his mouth seductively, reminding me of the old dragons.

The merchant boy shrugged good-naturedly. "I like my women like I like my eggs. Over easy."

"Hah! A player to boot," Sakata beamed. "Here's to beautiful curls and luscious locks!" The two wavy haired men embraced each other and gulped down their drinks to cheers from some neighbours.

"What about you, Captain?" I heard Takasugi ask and his voice betrayed a mischievous lilt. I waved my hand, but the younger men were already perked to attention, staring at me. Even Katsura expressed his interest with a stifled burp and a hazy glare. "You got any, growing up in the mountains?"

"Was there any back in his day?" somebody heckled.

"Yeah, Captain, what about you?"

"That was a long time ago," I went for my best impression of an old man whose life was either too rich to recount, or too distant to remember, neither of which was true. To Takasugi and the others, I must have been ancient enough for they looked as though they would drop the subject.

Unfortunately, Aizawa was my age. Those tricks didn't work on him. "Oh, Mikkun was pretty over easy in his time. Tell them about Yoshiwara." I gave Aizawa a dirty look but he only grinned at me.

"Yoshiwara? Really, Captain?" the merchant boy gaped. Matching ooh's and aah's echoed from our growing audience.

"That must have cost a pretty penny," Sakata commented.

"Is it true, Captain?"

"Yes," I admitted. There was a general kafuffle of excitement.

"How was it?"

"Wait, this was before it was burned, right?"

"Obviously, you twat."

"That was a long time ago."

"Hookers are hookers," Sakata put in. "It's all the same shit."

"Yeah, but some hookers are the oiran," I said, with great gusto.

"Wait, you had the oiran?" Aizawa quirked his head.

"No," I admitted. "But I had the girl who would later become oiran."

Now the circle around us widened as heads turned to listen to my story. I felt myself grow drunk on more than booze, retelling a memory I had not thought of in a long time. I remembered the finest brandy I had ever drunk, and the softest skin I had ever touched. As was telling my battle-mates, my blood-brothers, all about it, I also remembered the young man who foolishly thought that this memory would surely be the most important memory of his life. How easily that young man had been deceived into believing the world could not change itself without his help. I shook my head against melancholy thoughts, and drank, listening to happy chatter. Yoshiwara was no more, somebody lamented. But others have heard that it was being rebuilt underground, that all the survivors would continue their lives there. Under the watchful eye of the traitor's government, I thought but did not say it out loud. The night was too beautiful to bring in cold whispers of reality. So I sat back, watching Katsura slowly slant sideways. Sakata had gone to find the latrine a while ago, and did not return. Then the merchant boy began telling of his encounters with prostitutes, and did so with a lot less poetic nostalgia than I had managed. The assembled men, Aizawa included, leered, jeered and gaped. Takasugi had gone to rummage through his luggage only to produce an old shamisen after somebody had started egging him on. He looked a little bit shy as he twisted the strings tighter, looking for harmony.

"He'll be good," I murmured out loud.

"What?" Aizawa asked me. "You've heard him play before?"

I shook my head. "No, that's n… Never mind."

I thought of the conversation we had on the mountainside, and found myself wondering what Takasugi had been going to say about his family, his childhood, his master. I wondered what sort of life he had led, and how that life had brought him to where he was now. Was it all that dissimilar from my life?

I thought he would be a good commander then, certainly a fine Captain. Now, watching how easily men crowded to him, how avidly they awaited his word, I thought he could possibly be more than a Captain. If we really won this war, if we really won it… I blinked at myself, confused. I hadn't thought about winning in such a long time. Not since the day it started, probably.

No. If I was going to be honest, I hadn't thought about winning since the first battle. I had gone into it excited, cocky. A foolish young man who believed the world could not change if he did not change it. I knew it was dangerous, sure; it was the battlefield. The battlefield was dangerous. And wonderful, and majestic. The battlefield was all anyone had ever talked about. It was everything I had ever been schooled for, the culmination of all of my life. And I went into it as they had taught me – excited, cocky, and ready to sacrifice myself. I came out of it a coward.

Yoshida's students seemed to come out of it commanders, leaders. Heroes. I wondered how Yoshida had spoken about battlefields. Would I even be able to understand that lesson?

"Where are you going?" Aizawa asked me.

"Take a piss," I muttered back.

"Captain? Are you alright?"

"Oh, don't mind him. He gets really philosophical when he's drunk," I heard Aizawa wave somebody down and I smiled as I found my way around out of the room. The night air struck me as a cold splash of water but it failed to sober me up. The walkway was damp beneath my bare feet, but smooth and solid. Exactly the way I remembered it. I looked up, searching the horizon for my village, but I could not see it. All around me, large clods of snow were falling in eerie silence. The sky was a uniform ashen-pink on all sides of us, and it seemed for a moment that we were alone in the universe.

Or I really was drunk. I snorted at myself and caught a movement in the corner of my eye. Seated in the darkness just a few steps from me, was Sakata, feet off the walkway and dangling carelessly in the cold air. He nodded to me in his usual, nonchalant way.

"Ca'tain."

"Lost your way from the toilets?" I asked him.

"Nah. I just couldn't stand listening to Takasugi rape that instrument any longer," he shook his head.

That was a bald-faced lie. I knew for a fact that it was Sakata who had produced that shamisen from god knows where, and presented it to Takasugi. I smirked at him and came to stand at his side.

"Weren't you going to go to take a piss?" he asked me lazily.

I was not going to rid him of myself that easily. "No, not really. By the way, how was it?"

"What?"

I nodded towards the side where a crumbling shack protected the latrine from the wind. It was pretty much the same gruesome little structure barely standing there since my childhood. Father had never once had it redone. "The shit-pit. Still in one piece?"

"No idea," he breathed, squinting in the direction I had indicated. "Never found it. Pissed in the snow."

I chuckled. "Aren't you cold as all hell?"

Sakata rocked his bare feet, snowflakes whispering around them ominously. "Nope."

He did not add he was used to it, but I heard it in his dismissive tone. He wasn't a kid from a fine family, I reminded myself. His accent proved as much. Neither was he from a merchant family like his fellow mophead, I was willing to wager. No. He was a kid who was used to being barefoot in the snow. My drunken curiosity became monstrous, and I sat down next to him. To his credit, he did not shuffle away, even though I could tell he wanted to.

"Why are you in this war, Sakata?"

"Whoa," he whistled gently. "That's quite a turn in the conversation."

"Does that mean you don't want to answer me?"

"Why are you in it?" he countered.

I refused to let him to buy time. "I hardly had a choice. You certainly did."

"Maybe I wanted to make a name for myself," he shrugged.

"Well, if that's it, you're lagging behind. Soldier," I commented. "Your schoolmate is already Captain."

Sakata looked back towards the warm illumination of the room and I saw, for the briefest moment, a smile linger in his sleepy eyes. "That little shit was always too popular for his own good. I'm fine in the back of the bus with Zura."

"Oh, I wouldn't dismiss Katsura," I told him honestly. "He'll make it high up as well. He has the balls and the brains for it."

"Not a chance," Sakata harrumphed. "Zura's got the personality of a sea urchin. Hasn't got a charismatic bone in his stupid face."

"You're wrong. You didn't see him when you two are not around," I said lightly, but then it struck me what a profound statement that was.

If Sakata felt the same way, I could not tell. His silence could have been meditative. But he could have just as easily dozed off.

"You didn't answer me," I reminded him.

"Neither did you," Sakata observed.

I pulled hands around me to chase away some of the cold, and stared ahead into the quiet frozen eternity. "Going to war or not going to war was not a decision I ever had to make. I only had to choose between going with my brothers, or staying behind. Hah, I thought you would get that!" I breathed happily when I saw recognition tug the sides of his mouth.

"Peer pressure is a fucking thing," he chuckled gently.

"And you chose to go with your brothers?"

"That and kill the demons, save the princess, get the magic fruit, rule the country. The full shebang," Sakata gestured to the invisible horizon. "I'm in it for the long run."

Bullshit, and we both knew it. I couldn't tell what he was skirting around, but I was sure he was skirting. "Try again."

He looked at his feet, compelled to honesty. "I told you. I'm here to bring even one delusional moron out of this alive. Swinging my dick."

I smirked. "I think you suffer from a serious god complex, Sakata, if you think you can save everybody."

His silence was long, and as it stretched so a darker mood enveloped me once more. I did not even notice when I began to speak. "I was the student of Hashimoto. Along with Aizawa, and Murakami, and few others. I had gone there against my father's will. Just before the war started, word came that he had disowned me. I saw my father again, much later, on a battlefield."

Sakata did not ask me whether I had spoken to my father then, or ever after. I had the impression that he already knew the answer. That, just as Takasugi might have known what it felt like to lose everything, Sakata knew what it felt like to lose more than that. Unlike me, he did not have to forge the knowledge in the first fight, and quench it in the first blood. He knew beforehand. I dawned on me that he must have been a thousand times more frightened going into that first battle, than I had ever been. Yet he had gone, and he had come out.

"What a strange thing," I said after a moment. "Sometimes I get the impression you are older than I am. Must be the hair."

"Must be," he agreed easily.

"You had said a wise thing, once upon a time in that temple."

"I did?" he seemed surprised.

"Yes. It took me longer to figure it out, but the Shogun, and the bushido, and the country? They are bullshit. All you have is the man next to you, and the man commanding you. Everything else is a mass delusion, you know?"

"I suppose," Sakata shrugged but I could tell he was listening. The party behind us was growing quite loud, but the night carried no sound very far. We were still in this little cocoon on top of the mountain.

"Not that I was not willing to die for our cause. All of us were willing to die for our cause. It turned out, however, that some of us were not willing to die for nothing at all," I was struck by the spell of my own words, and went on, trying not to slur. "I had since learned that those who would sacrifice themselves achieve very little. They go out, looking for their magnificent death, and they usually find it rather quickly. Only the ones… who are willing to die for nothing, can choose to die at the right moment. When it really matters. The rest of us just stumble along behind you. Oh, shit, I feel like a goddamned Buddha."

"You sound drunk, Ca'tain," Sakata offered his expert opinion.

But I was on the verge of realizing something, it was right at the tip of my tongue. I tried to capture it. "You… are willing to die for nothing."

"There is nothing I am _willing_ to die for," Sakata corrected, his teeth winked at me in the dark. They made a funny shape around the word "willing" and I laughed in understanding.

"So what are you willing to do?"

Sakata shrugged and remained silent. After a while, I went to the latrine. It was as awful as I remembered it. When I came back onto the walkway, Sakata was not there anymore, but I saw lonely footsteps in the snow. Crazy boy. If he comes back with chilblain and can't march, I will personally make him walk on his elbows behind us.

 _First, let me thank you for all your comments. I am not used to so many... Tells me a lot about how lively the Gintama fandom is here. Yay, I am home._

 _[1]_ _The song was inspired by something I sung with my friends in elementary school, albeit in Croatian. I tried to adapt it to English… tried being the operative word, but I hope you get the idea. There is a rather upbeat, rhythmic melody to it that sounds a lot like a military chant, so I thought it might be something guerrilla warriors would pick up and improvise dirty lyrics to it._

 _[2]_ _Modern-day Gifu province is made up of Mino to the southwest, and_ _[3]_ _Hida to the northeast._ _[4]_ _Shinano corresponds to modern Nagano province. It is a very mountainous region, famous for its snowfall and volcanoes, some of which Mikuni mentions. Incidentally, Hagi is the old seat of modern-day Yamaguchi province, which was at the time made up of Suo and Nagato. It was also the birthplace of the historic Yoshida Shouin, and the place in which he was held before being transported to Edo for his execution._

 _[5]_ _Let me note here that being a boy-lover was a perfectly acceptable thing in Edo-period Japan. In the military, it was treated on a DADT basis. Meanwhile, I wanted to slip in a Zura-is-gay joke in there. On the subject, of the three of them, I think Takasugi is gay (and not just because i ship him with someone in particular). Allow me a little rant and I invite you to comment on it._

 _Of the three of them, Zura and Gintoki both have very strong female opposites, and we get to see them interacting with those women in some pretty sexual ways. The only female opposite Takasugi has, is a groupie, and he has about as much chemistry with her as a he does with a watermelon (unless you're into that sort of thing). On the other hand, we see Takasugi being sexy with other men all the time: playing music with Bansai, being totally adored by Nizou, being totally obsessed with Gintoki. Also... Kamui. I rest my case. Somehow, I think that either Sorachi gave us an elegant bit of psychological profiling here, or I am just a little bit too high right now._


	4. Chapter 4

**Insubordination, part 1**

We really did begin to look like an army. I inhaled deeply. Cold air growled through my nostrils, bringing with it smells of the camp. I listed them. Damp earth and wet tree bark. Sour vegetables – the last before the spring brought fresh food, mixed with sweet perfume of cooked rice. Horse dung as well as human waste clung to the outside of every breath, but I barely noticed it anymore. Wood fires, and leather, and damp hair. Beautiful.

"Fucking beautiful," I murmured with a smirk. Morning sun was gentle on my face while the busy bustle of men reassured me with its routine. We were preparing, but nobody was panicking. We were on the offensive. I made my way towards the Commander's tent. Oh, now. It was the General's tent. I massaged the insolent smirk out of my mouth. Takasugi had guessed right. Itou was Grand General now, Hashimoto was Commander. Satou was also promoted to Commander.

I was still Captain. Sakata poked fun at me about it. That was alright; he was still a foot soldier even though he technically did the work of a lieutenant. But a lot of my core men did get swept up from under me in the last year. Aizawa was first. He got made Captain of the rear guard last spring. My other lieutenant got his promotion rather more recently. I laughed at the memory of Katsura, preparing his insignia with great care while his schoolmate gave him hell for it. Even with all the piss-taking, it was obvious Sakata was concerned for his friend. I could also tell he was proud of him. Yesterday, he volunteered to accompany Katsura on his first solo recon mission. He never volunteered for anything. I gave in out of pure shock.

In the meanwhile, I got stuck with the gangly clodhopper whose name I constantly forgot. Saka—fuck[1]. All I knew is that it wasn't Saka—ta. He was running up to me right now, too-big helmet bouncing around his shaggy head as he skipped over or around people and objects in the camp. He looked exactly like what he was – a merchant-boy. He had about as much of a swordsman's grace in his movements as a lake trout. But he was my lieutenant now. I sighed.

It was not that I disliked the merchant-boy. It was just that he could be… grating. Particularly early in the morning.

"Ca'tain!" For one, he had Sakata's lazy greetings down to a T.

"Hey, erm, Sakagawa."

"Sakamoto, sir."

I coughed. "Got the maps and figures, lieutenant?"

Saka… whatever, gestured to a bundle of paper scrolls grasped under his arm. I nodded in a captain-like way. That was a winter's worth of inventory he had there – all men, weapons, animals, our needs and expenditures – what amounted to the sum total of the military might under my command. The merchant boy had proved quite adept at bringing it all together, actually. He was useful in other ways as well. A well travelled man, it had turned out, he knew the different routes around the country, places to find water, shelter, food, or even temporary work. He also knew where to get weapons on the black market, and which craftsmen to ask for help, which city councilmen to threaten or bribe. He had a head on him, that was certain. Somewhere, under that stupid helmet.

"Sir?" he saw me frowning at him and barked a silly laugh. "Erm…"

I was saved from having to call him something terrible when a friendly face popped up from the crowd. "Mikkun! Mikuni!"

"Ah!" I greeted Murakami with a smile and waited for him to catch up. He looked good, settled in his new position of General's Captain. I was happy for him. It was a position of honour and responsibility. Itou had taken him under his wing after Murakami had saved his life during a surprise raid. Their rather stoic, severe personalities worked well together. Having said that, I wouldn't have traded places with him for the world.

"On your way to the General?" he gripped my forearm warmly.

"Yep. What's the news?"

"We have the Amanto off our tails for the moment. Reports came in that they still have troops searching as far back as Kami-tsu-ke[2]. But we have to move fast before they pick us up from this side. We've circled so far around them, they won't even know what hit them." His iron-cast mouth tugged into a vicious little smile.

"Katsura should be back from the recon within hours," I supplanted. "Then we re-manoeuvre and…" I squeezed my fist.

"The General thinks we should make a move now, from here, pick up Katsura along the way and take advantage of early surprise."

"But Aizawa and his unit are not back yet, or Takasugi."

"They are a day behind us at most. Aizawa would hold the rear line anyway. And Takasugi is light on his feet. He would catch up."

"We'll still have time to sit and think about it properly," I shrugged it off. "Once Katsura reports in."

"Will we? Sentry saw movement to the east. They are careful little buggers 'round these parts."

"I heard. But they were too far t-"

"East?" I heard my lieutenant inquire, interrupting us. Murakami and I frowned at him in unison, the way superior officers tended to do. We were becoming a couple of old geezers, honestly.

"What's wrong, Sukegawa?" I grunted.

"Sakamoto, sir. East…" he squinted into the tree canopy, and beyond, to the sun, as though pondering the whole countryside from its perspective. "They shouldn't have been to the east."

Murakami shrugged, but I stared at my lieutenant for a moment longer as we both ducked down to enter the relative darkness of the command tent. People were just beginning to assemble, so a few Captains were standing at the back of the room chatting in hushed voices. Front and central, Itou was presiding over several large maps, Satou and Hashimoto on either side. I recognized the mountain range drawn on one of them – I have been walking it for a year, leading the enemy this way and that while the rest of our forces sneaked in from the other sides. Now we were all together, finally assembled, and standing on the same sheet of paper geography as our prize. A wooden pillar represented it: the Terminal. I glowered at it for a moment. After all was said and done, it did look remarkably like a dildo. The running joke in my unit was what Itou did with it after hours. I missed Sakata…

"Mikuni," Hashimoto greeted me.

"Commander," I smiled. I had not had time to congratulate him for his promotion but the warm lilt in my voice seemed to be enough. My old master nodded. His hair had gone whiter than I remembered it.

"Mikuni," Itou said curtly. "I need your figures."

I nodded. "Yes, sir. Erm, Sugi… mura?"

"Sakamoto," he gave a pained giggle and handed his bundle of papers to Itou. Itou spread them over the map. Hashimoto pointed something out to him, while Satou coupled my inventory to the inventories of other Captains. Our three highest ranking officers began to mumble like witches over their brew. I prepared myself for a long wait before their conclusions eventually trickled far enough down the chain of command to reach me. Then I noticed that my lieutenant hadn't stopped talking yet.

"About the sentry reports from the east?" Sakafuck blurted out. "Where exactly are we talking? Up the mountain, or down?"

If the frowns Murakami and I had given him were not enough to do the trick, the Itou-Satou-Hashimoto combination was powerful enough to down a small elephant. Silence fell around the room like a thick fog. The older Captains skewered him with their gazes before Hashimoto finally unglued his jaw.

"Up the mountain. Why do you ask… Lieutenant?"

He did not take the hint. "And their bearing? Was north, right? They shouldn't have been there."

"Why not?" Yeah, why the hell not, I thought at my lieutenant, but now with a dose of dread slipping down my throat.

Whatever Sakamoto was going to say was interrupted when a breathless man ran into the command tent. He clutched his side and stumbled towards us. At first, words didn't come out of his throat at all, but when they finally did they were, "Ambush! We were ambushed."

All of us burst into questions like clucking chickens.

"What?"

"Who was?"

"Ambush?!"

"Give the man water!"

"Where? When?"

Itou raised his hand and we shut up. He gestured towards the gasping man. "Continue."

"The recon mission! They engaged us on the down-slope, came in from behind five hours march north. Captain split us up and took an attack group forward, while we doubled back to warn you. They likely know our position."

"Katsura?" Hashimoto asked. My heart stopped.

The man waved his head. "They are cut off. We could not wait for them… we, we had orders!" he justified. I could smell survivor's guilt on him as clearly as I could smell his sweat. I wanted to say something comforting, but my mind was blank and my breathing shallow.

"How many? How many attackers?" Satou asked, usually monotone bass reverberating with emotion.

The soldier shrugged. I saw a trickle of blood running down the back of his neck. "Dunno, sir. Thousands."

Itou looked stricken. All colour had drained from his face; even his gums turned white. "Wh… How?"

The man, having delivered his message, shook his head weakly. Somebody was sensible enough to have brought him a drink. I only vaguely heard Murakami call for a medic. My head was spinning, unable to reconcile what I had just heard. No, no, no! This wasn't how it was supposed to be. We were so good, we had the advantage! They couldn't have found us out, impossible!

I also thought, _my men!_ All those people I was supposed to kill for…

The hush was sticky with the breaths of hyperventilating officers awaiting a battle plan. We stared at Itou, but he was lost in an internal struggle. We could see it contract his face with anger, and stretch it with frustration. Finally, Hashimoto decided to speak instead of him, voice level. "Captains, get everybody uprooted. We break camp immediately. Murakami, I need you to find Aizawa and stop him from bringing the supplies here. Take a unit with you. He might be a target as well."

"No, wait," Itou raised a hand once more, but I could see it shake. "We need the supplies. We need to fight them off here and now."

"General, not in this terrain," Hashimoto protested.

"Sir, he's right, they'll likely come with airships," somebody agreed. That was very sensible. I was still mute.

"Thousands, sir," Satou mouthed. "And we must assume they have reinforcements ready." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a medic take the wounded man away. Katsura's wounded man.

"No!" Itou shouted. "We are so close! We will never have this momentum!"

"What about Katsura?" I asked, but nobody heard me.

"General, we are dead here," Hashimoto told his superior evenly. "We need to break camp immediately."

Itou's face was no longer drained, but bright red with fury. "No! No! We must strike now. The opportunity is perfect, there will never be another one like it."

"We will make another one, sir," Hashimoto said. "We will make it again."

Itou slammed his fist onto the table. The Terminal toppled over. "We will never have the numbers. Don't you know how long it took us to assemble?!"

Carefully, Hashimoto gripped Itou's shoulders; whether for restraint or support, I could not say. "Yes. And now we have to disperse. We have to run, General," he whispered. Then ever more softly, "Please, Hayato, please listen…"

They stared at each other, and I wondered how many private moments like this they had shared before. Then Itou deflated. He sat down onto a stool. His sigh sounded to me more like a desperate howl. "Commander… Give the orders."

Hashimoto nodded gravely. "We break camp immediately. Satou's group will guard the north-western flank, myself and the General will take the front. We move fast and disperse the moment we descend the mountain. You all know the drill. We rendezvous in…" We hung on his word, eyes searching the map in front of us eagerly. The silence stretched and I looked up at my teacher. He seemed tired, sad… And lost. I had never seen him lost before. And now, for the first time, I was afraid.

"We rendezvous in… I, I- don't even know."

"Mito[3]," my lieutenant piped in. His finger fell onto the map without hesitation.

"You are mad!" Smoebody protested. "Mito is directly under the rule of the Tokugawa family."

"It's an old keep in an old city. They are no friends to the Amanto, I guarantee it," Sakamoto replied, much more patient and collected then I could have been in his place. "Besides, they'll never think to look for us there."

"That's a month's trip!" Murakami gasped. "We'll never make it."

"We will if we carry minimal weight," he shrugged. "From Mito we can make our way to the sea, barter passage into Kamigata[4], and from there, wherever we want."

Hashimoto nodded. He looked solid once more, the way before him firm and broad. "That's how we'll do it. Load up the horses: food for a month, essential gear. Carry only your weapons with you. We might have to engage on the way. Everything that-"

"Sir," I interrupted. "What about Katsura?"

Hashimoto's neck snapped in my direction. I already knew what he was going to say. I could see it in his eyes, and I stared back with spiteful defiance. But my old master never got to tell me how I should let my men die, because Itou spoke up from the chair, voice gravely. "We cannot spare the time. Besides… they are lost already."

"But-," I began.

Hashimoto raised his voice over mine, letting it fill the whole room once more. "Men carry weapons, horses carry essentials. Everything that cannot be loaded, we leave behind. Now go! We move out within the hour. I will see all of you in Mito. Dismissed!"

"Yessir!" people shouted in response. Captains shuffled out in an orderly fashion; the way we were taught to. I, however, did not move.

"Commander!" I called to Hashimoto. "I request permission to go assist Captain Katsura's unit. I also request that you allow volunteers to accompany me."

Everybody froze. I heard Sakamoto behind me stop his breathing. The men who had not yet exited the tent, began shuffling through the doors, while the ones who had stepped out, began trying to squeeze back in. Their eyes were on me like burning hooks. I knew I had done wrong the moment I heard my tone reverberate back at me. I had broken etiquette, I had addressed the wrong officer, I had ignored the dismissal.

"Captain," Hashimoto ground out. "You have your marching orders."

"So we are just leaving them?"

"You overstep, Mikuni!" Itou growled from the chair.

I inhaled to reply, but Hashimoto walked up to me with such ferocity I thought he was going to deck me. "You heard the messenger. Thousands. They are dead. So are we if we don't move. Junchi, I need you here."

"Sir-"

"I know your lieutenant has become known for performing miracles, Captain," Itou called, getting up from his stool, "But don't you go around picking up his habit of disobeying orders!"

I was confused, angered. "Katsura is not insubordinate."

"I wasn't talking about-," Itou began but I did not let him finish.

"Sir, we have barely assembled, you said so yourself. Do you know why?" My voice trembled violently. I had toed the line before; now I was stomping on it. I did not care. "Because we have become known as the ones who either fight to die, or the ones who let our comrades do it for us! If we leave them out there now, what man would ever join us again? How many will leave? They can all leave, General, did you forget that? There is nothing we can do to stop them. As a matter of fact, there is nothing you can do to stop me!"

"Junchi…" Murakami breathed from the other side of the room.

"We say we follow Bushido. It is what binds us all together; it is _all_ that binds us together. Well, fucked if this is Bushido!" I could no longer hear a thing, but I saw men around me recoil, as though I was contagious. Even Hashimoto stepped back in shock.

Itou rose up to his full height. His two long swords were quiet at his hip but I noticed them. He had finality in his voice. "Mikuni. One more word out of you…"

"And what?! General?" I screamed back. "You will ask me to open my stomach? Really, sir? Really?"

Itou faltered so badly I thought he would fall over. "An army without discipline…" he finally squeezed out. "An army without discipline is doomed."

"We are doomed anyways! And if we leave those men to die, we are damned as well."

I had bellowed on pure impulse. I had said something really evil. I did not mean it, did I? Had I not stood in front of my tent only a few minutes ago and surveyed the camp thinking we looked like an army? Had I not begun to wonder what my soldiers would be after our battles were won? Had I not imagined the new world we would create? Was I lying to myself? That did not sound like me at all…

When I finally began breathing again, I saw hurt in Hashimoto's eyes and it pierced me straight through the chest. But his tone was icy when he said, "Alright. Find your volunteers, Mikuni. Find them in your own unit."

My heart broke, but that was fair enough. "Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

This time I stomped out promptly, Sakamoto dogging my heels as we rushed through the camp. I bumped into Captains who were too slow to get out of the way. Outside, the bustle that had been so reassuring before, took on a frantic edge. I shouldered through groups of people, jumped over fires, my purpose burning a path for me. Even my tall lieutenant with his long legs had to run to keep up.

"You know you don't have to march out with me," I told him. "But I would ask you to help me assemble volunteers."

"Sure," Sakamoto said.

"You know the area. Can I trust you to lead the retreat?"

"No."

I turned to him with a rabid expression, but Sakamoto shrugged, giving a nervous laugh. "I am coming with you. Of course." He seemed to look for words – or his breath, as we slid downhill towards our part of the camp. "They are- I mean, this is… It's Bushido, right?"

I smiled at the once-merchant boy. "Yes, Lieutenant. I sure as fuck think so."

* * *

 _[1]_ _Sakafuck. Come on, I couldn't resist._

 _[2]_ _Kami-tsu-ke is the modern day Gifu prefecture. Together with Tochigi, it made up Edo-period Kenu province. Incidentally, this chapter is taking place in modern-day Fukushima prefecture, then the southern-most part of Mutsu province._ _[3]_ _Mito is the capital of Hitachi, today-Ibaraki prefecture which is to the south of Fukushima.  
_

 _[4]_ _Kamigata was the region between Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, and Osaka, one of the biggest merchant ports. Both of these were traditionally very conservative cities, and – I think – would not have approved of Amanto. In the real Boshin war, Kyoto was the hidden front line for the fight between rebels and the loyalists – the Shinsengumi were based there, for example, an clashed with many different rebel factions which ran around Kamigata. Not sure what the verdict is on this region in Gintama, but to defend Sakamoto's logic, Osaka's port was vast and busy. It would easily take the load of a few thousand sailors and pass them along undetected._

 _What I had a lot of fun with in this fanfic was exploring what leadership styles the JOUI four have. I think Takasugi is just charismatic by nature. He's the sort of mystical, ineffable leader that could fit just as well into a cult as they could in the military; think Che Guevara, but also David Koresh. Katsura's appeal comes from his actions, instead of his personality. For me at least, Zura's charisma emerges only once you get to know him; once he sells you his perfect vision of samurai. I may have been a little bit harsh when I wrote he had the personality of a sea urchin, but in comparison to Takasugi and Gintoki, he would not stand out until crunch time._

 _Now, Sakamoto is a charmer, but his leadership lies... I have no idea. There is an aura of a Prince of Thieves around him, though – he is unscrupulous in business but takes care of his own. A very military rather than mercantile quality, I think, and something he may have learned in the war. I really like exploring how he developed into the strategist we know he becomes, especially since canon says he is a merchant. Until I started writing this chapter, I did not really stop to think about what that actually meant. For example, here's some headcannon for you: who taught Sakamoto how to fight? As a merchant, he would have never even held a weapon in his hands, especially since they were banned before his birth. How did he even decide to get involved in this samurai war?_

 _And as for Gintoki's leadership style, I think he has innate charisma, but it comes from a totally different place than Takasugi's (and that is a whole other discussion). Considering his disregard for hierarchy, I think that he would never have held a rank despite being a brilliant military commander. He would have just taken over when he really needed to, used that strange magnetism to live out his god-complex. Nobody would know his name, but they would all know about him._


	5. Chapter 5

**Insubordination, part 2**

We were on the move within a quarter of an hour, armed to the teeth. Nevertheless, there was already hardly anybody left in our side of the camp by then. One of Katsura's survivors agreed to lead us. Sakamoto was behind me. Suzuki, my other lieutenant, had command of the unit, leading them to Mito as ordered. I had more volunteers than I had anticipated, less than I wanted. We blazed down the mountain in single file. Nobody spoke. I could hear only the jingle of weapons and the laboured breaths of the man directly in front of me. The cold reality of what I was likely to find at the end of my journey was sinking in, seeping into my heart like icy water. Five hours march, the man had said. Even if my smaller unit was twice as fast, it would still take us almost three hours to make it down to the battlefield. By that time, Katsura would have been on his own out there for at least eight. It would seem he had managed to outmanoeuvre the enemy, but he could only keep his men running for so long. I knew the Amanto would not let them go, especially if they believed they could still keep their secret by slaughtering the little recon party. When had they found our location, anyway? Did they know our plan? Did they prepare for us running?

Lethal mathematics turned my stomach. I realized that Hashimoto had let me go to my own death. Honestly, what could I do? Even if Katsura was alive with his men, and still holding out by some miracle, what could I do?

I could do what I could, and no less. Until the last of my blood was scraped from my veins, I could continue doing what I could. I owed him that much.

I remembered when Katsura jumped with me into the melee to get Kuramoto's body. This felt a lot like it. Of course, Kuramoto actually survived in the end, against all odds. I very much doubted we would be as lucky.

I dragged my mind out of the poisonous loop it had fallen into. "Sakamoto."

"Ca'tain?" he inquired. He was breathing hard, but not quite as hard as I was. Damn him, he was younger.

"You stick with me on this, got it?" I said.

"Yessir."

"I don't want you engaging on your own, got me?"

"Yessir."

"How…" Talking was making me pant even more. "How did you know?"

"What, sir?"

"About the sentry to the east. You had a feeling it was wrong."

Sakamoto grumbled, pondering. A nasty cliff opened in the forest floor before us, slippery with fallen leaves and lined with sharp rocks. Our conversation waited until we managed to get off the treacherous slope.

"If I had command of the Terminal," Sakamoto explained, gulping greedy mouthfuls of air as we continued in the punishing rhythm. "If I had their numbers to hold it, I would not waste my men on the East. It is not the logical way for anyone to approach. And if I did send the sentry out, it would not move northwards, into the mountains but the other way around." He shrugged genially. "It just didn't make any sense."

"Hmm," I said, not quite following. I would need to see the map again, then it would have perhaps fallen into place. Instead, I eyed Sakamoto's sword suspiciously. "Have you gotten any better with that?"

"I really fucking hope so, sir," he said honestly. We both barked a laugh. Gallows humour – it was most fitting.

Shouts came from all the way down the line. "Everybody! Hit the deck!"

"Drop and cover! NOW!"

Sakamoto and I fell to the ground and rolled into a bush on pure knee-jerk reflex. We lay on our backs, unsure what we exactly were doing there but then a familiar howling pierced our ears.

"Airships," I whispered. It was stupid to whisper. The Amanto certainly could not hear me, and neither could Sakamoto. The breathy mechanical howl became a scream and a rumble at the same time. Then the air condensed around me, forced me into the soft ground as the first ship travelled directly overhead. I could barely breathe from the pressure. Then a pulse of wind burst through the canopy a few hundred yards downhill followed by almighty cracking and thudding. I bit my lip. They were looking for us! Did this mean they were finished with Katsura? No. They could not know he had split his unit. I had to believe they launched airships out of fear Katsura was still out there, and finding his way back to warn us. Otherwise, they would have sent the land troops in to finish us, and would not have wasted time searching the forest from the skies. They were assuming we had already slipped away. Which only proved they did not yet have Katsura… right? Maybe.

Another burst cleared the forest in a fifty metre radius just to our right. Tree branches, stone, mud and upset earth flew over our position.

"Ah!" I heard Sakamoto grunt in surprise as something hit him over the head. It made a nasty clang against his helmet. At least that proved its usefulness… I supposed that excused its ugliness.

Then the air-pressure mounted beyond anything I had felt before. My blood reverberated. Oh, no, were they going to clear this part of the forest as well? I was not sure whether we could survive the pulse… But that was not it. A large warship hovered above us. I could see it as a shadow against the sun, large, looming, monolith. Something that big could not possibly fly! The sky seemed to boil with the burden of it. Tops of trees burst open into splinters. The ground shook beneath me, rocking my lungs so violently I could not draw breath at all.

"Oh, my merciful mother of…" Sakamoto gasped. Screamed, I supposed. "That's a class breaker[1]! That… that is..."

I did not bother asking him what he meant, nor did I bother commenting on the awe in his tone. Instead, I waited for the monstrosity to hover on uphill and shouted with all my might, "Soldiers, sound out!"

A few dozen aye's and aah's reassured me that I still had all my troops with me. "Move out!"

And we did, hauling ass like there was no tomorrow. We knew that the Amanto were at the camp site by now. We could only hope the others had already given them the slip. It was a strange thing, now that I thought about it: at this moment, my little merry troop of suicides and idiots was the safest unit in the rebel army. We were in the enemy's blind spot. If I just took my men to the west and back over the mountains… If we just let our weapons fall into the mud, and walked away from them… If we just dissolved into strangers, no longer subordinates and superiors, no longer brothers-in-arms – just another handful of refugees arriving from who knows where…

If I left them somewhere along that road and made my way back to Shinano, to my village…

"Captain," the man in front of me pointed. A few hundred yards away, there was a body. By the size of it, I doubted it was a human body. We had stumbled onto a battlefield. Good. I skipped ahead, gripping my long sword. It felt smooth and eager; its touch calmed me.

"Take cover and follow my lead," I hissed. We had to play commando now. Takasugi was better at this game than I was. I knew how to lead people into a straightforward battle, but he was masterful at sneaking around, finding his way between enemy lines like water trickling through cracks. And, even more importantly, he knew how to take advantage of the tactical moment. Whatever else anybody said about the man, Takasugi had brilliant timing. He could find the golden trade-off between confusion and forward-momentum in a way I had never seen anybody manage. I wished I had his brains right now. I wished I had his commandos...

But I didn't. I had a lieutenant who had the refinement of a baboon when it came to swordplay, a bunch of delusional fools who surely had the brains of baboons to have followed me out here, and I had myself, with all my newfound disobedience. And I had a single dying wish – that my brothers were not murdered yet. I wished they would be alive to see me coming for them. That much, at least.

Sakamoto was breathing down my neck. "Not into the clearing."

"I know," I ground out moodily. He had a head on him, sure, but I still knew more about military strategy than he did, damn it all!

"Do you hear anything?" one of my men whispered.

"No…" I heard a despondent voice and realized it was mine. "Not a thing."

Where was the boom of alien cannons, or the ugly screams of their troops?! Where was metallic clanging? No, no, no, please, it could not all be over already. Not when I dragged these men into selfish danger. Not when I disobeyed my master, dishonoured him before the whole war council - everything so that I could do what I could. Please, let there still be something I could do!

We skirted what was obviously the outline of a battle front, shielded from view by the trees. Bodies lay in a haphazard pattern. From this distance, it was difficult to say whether they were our dead or the enemy dead. I could see absolutely no movement. It looked as though the battle had only just finished, and it was still too soon for the medics to come sanitize the remains. Everything looked dead, but we heard a few groans as we moved closer. These gave me hope.

"Do you see anything?" somebody asked.

"I see Toyokawa," another gasped. I scoured the landscape. Toyokawa had been in my unit. He was Katsura's lieutenant. Was no longer.

"Where?" I breathed. A bitter gulp of air hitched in my throat and burned there. Too late… "Show me."

Before the man could answer, Sakamoto clamped a hand over my shoulder. "Ca'tain, over there! I can see movement."

I looked down the length of his arm as though aiming over the barrel of a gun. The trees thinned out into a ravaged circle – an artificial clearing the Amanto had created. In the middle of it, I could see several figures but could not be sure what they were doing.

"Move," I grunted. My men followed. We whispered through the undergrowth, ears alert to the howl of airships. If the Amanto failed to find our army where they had thought it would be, they would surely backtrack down here, looking for it. And where were their thousands, I wondered? This battlefield was already closer to the campsite than I had expected. How come we did not meet enemy soldiers on our way down?

Something was very wrong. My eyebrows came together in a tight knot as I peered into the clearing. Now I recognized at least ten men out there. No, eleven, but one was on the ground. He seemed to get up again and stumble towards the others. I could not see what they were doing. It did not look like a fight… It was all in slow motion, thick and jerky, and full of long periods of motionless silence.

"I can't see," I bit out unhappily.

"It's Gintoki," Sakamoto said.

"What? You have good eyes!" I grunted at him.

"No, I don't, actually," he grinned. "But it's Gintoki."

I squinted again, looking for tell-tale white. But none of the coats were white. My men waited while I squinted over the field, trying to hide my uncertainty.

This was the thing Takasugi was so good at – teasing hubris out of the funk of fear. He could make men, nervous before a fight, believe that they were gods of war and that this was their great moment of victory. I could do none of that. I did not know whether or not we should cross into the clearing and attack. Attack whom? I did not know whether or not we should follow the circle farther south to find out where the rest of the enemy troops were. That made sense, and it did not make sense at the same time.

To hell with it, I thought. "Sakamoto, and you two, with me. The rest, stay hidden. Pay attention to my signals. If I say run..." I stumbled over my words. My men looked at me, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. I evened out my emotions. "If I say run, you take off for Mito. Drop your weapons in the forest if you have to, but meet the others in Mito."

"Sir," my men mumbled their agreement. I nodded to Sakamoto, and the four of us ran out into the open.

My feet tripped over limbs; some Amanto, some human. Every now and again I would almost loose footing, slipping against something. Mud or entrails? If I had time to think about what it was exactly, I might have become sick. But I kept my gaze pointed forward, to the drama unfolding a few hundred metres feet ahead. There were only seven men out there now. Was any of them Sakata? Or Katsura? Or even human? I could not see. One figure did stand out, though, towering above the rest. Amanto, I guessed. One of those quick, slinky types who always gave us trouble. The Shinra or something.

I watched as he ran into another man. The other – no more than an abstract brown-grey blur in the middle of the field – seemed to falter. His knee buckled and folded into the mud. One of the remaining five figures took advantage of his momentary weakness and sliced down his back. I heard the man scream in pain and rage. The scream finally helped me see better…

It really was him. Sakata rolled into the taller opponent, knocking him off balance. He straightened a few feet away and swiped his blade over the ground where the Shinra's neck had been but the tall alien had already recovered from the scrap. The little opportunist who had wounded Sakata a moment ago was prancing up to his flank. The Shinra rounded up from his crouch and coiled his muscles for an attack. Sakata breathed hard, mouth wide open. Even from this distance, I could tell each movement was hurting him. My shout of warning died in my throat when both of his enemies lifted their sword.

"N-!"

Then it was all over, within seconds, in a maelstrom of steel and flesh. My brain, starved of oxygen from the dead run, could not comprehend what had happened. The only thing I knew was that no more figures were standing in the middle of the clearing anymore.

"Sakataaaa!" I shouted, not even caring if anybody heard us.

"Zuraaaaaa!" Sakamoto joined in. "Kintokiiiiiiiii!"

Had one of the other figures been Katsura? I did not know whether the merchant boy had actually seen my old lieutenant, or if this was more of his wishful thinking.

I did not care. "Katsuraaaaaaaa!" I yelled, throat raw. Nobody replied. The last hundred metres were pure torture. When I saw the bodies, my brain finally pieced back together the impossible scene it had witnessed.

The Shinra was lying farthest from the centre, drying eyes staring from his ashen face. The upper half of his body was twisted towards the sky while the lower portion had flipped in the opposite direction. It made him look like a discarded toy. He had been the last to go. The little opportunist, his skull split open, had been first. He lay a few metres away, trapped beneath the body of a large rhinoceros-like alien who had most likely been Katsura's opponent. When Katsura had sent him flying backwards into the little one, Gintoki grabbed a bearded axe – I could see it now, lying next to the bodies – and felled the two stumbling attackers. Confused, the Shinra was drawn into a melee where Katsura shredded everything around him, spinning in a blind frenzy – the two remaining aliens must have fallen victims to that, judging by the gruesome cuts adorning their corpses. The tall Shinra had managed to block it all, but that did not help him. Sakata found his opening.

I had a vivid image of him sheathing his blade and lowering his head for one last pass. He inhaled slowly, and I had heard it, I could swear I had. The world stopped around him for an eternal second, emblazoned forever onto my eyelids. I had never seen a cleaner draw or a more magnificent kill.

But now I could not find either of my men anymore. I called out again, more desperate than ever. "Katsura! Sound out, soldier!"

"Kinotkiii!" Sakamoto yelled. "Zuraaaaa! Kinto-"

"Who the fuck is Kintoki?" I heard a quiet groan from my right. "You stupid cuntwipe." My lungs melted in relief.

"Kintoki!" Sakamoto exclaimed joyfully and ran to his friend. I haunted his step. The other two men did not move a muscle. I could understand why.

Sakata was sitting on his knees, still gripping the sword he'd struck into the ground. His face was hollowed out and deadly pale. If not for his feverish eyes, he would have been indistinguishable from the dead bodies around him. Not a single part of him was not coloured rust-brown and encrusted with blood. A nasty cut on the side of his neck was spluttering great gulps of crimson liquid in a grotesque rhythm. I could not understand how he was still conscious, let alone how he was still upright. Katsura was in even worse shape. He was prone with his head in Sakata's lap, smiling weakly at us. His eyes seemed unfocused, wandering our faces with little recognition. That scared me more than the bone poking out from his left ankle. But the worst thing were the streams of water rolling down his cheeks, leaving treacherous triangles of clean skin underneath warm, hazel eyes.

"Captain," he greeted me. "Captain, I… I-…"

Sakamoto was already next to Katsura's leg, ripping cloth from his sleeve to bind the wound. "Grit yer teeth, Zura. This is gonna hurt like fuck."

"M'name's not…" Katsura began saying, but did not have the strength.

My brain finally started working again. I raised my hand, and waved three times. The rest of my men, still in the forest, knew that meant they were to come and assist. I did not look back to see whether they obeyed me. Instead, I knelt in front of Sakata and put pressure onto his neck with a piece of cloth.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. He was not fine.

"What happened?" I began to ask.

"Hold him down, Ca'tain," Sakamoto demanded. I immediately found Katsura's shoulders and pressed carefully. One of my other men also stepped up, leaning his weight on my former lieutenant's hands. Meanwhile, Sakata put his hand over his friend's forehead for a brief moment. I did not know what that meant to the two of them, this intimate gesture, but it tore at my heart to watch it, so I rather looked at Sakamoto. He gripped Katsura's ankle expertly, concentrating.

"Three… two…" he counted down and pulled viciously. Katsura's whole body contracted but we held him in place. I did not know which unsettled me more – the painful crack of the bone, or the weak mewl Katsura gave. He was so close to passing out. Sakamoto bound his leg while my other man fed him water.

"Captain," Katsura began saying something again, but could not seem to get it out. "I couldn't, I-"

If he apologized to me right now, I would really rip my stomach open for him.

"Shut up now, Ka/Zura," Sakata and I said together. We found each other's eyes. I wondered if mine were as filled with guilt as his were.

"What happened, Gintoki?"

He frowned at hearing his name from my mouth but decided not to comment. "They ambushed us."

"Yes. We got the message."

"So they made it?" he whispered. He looked paler than ever, even as a testy smile cut lines around his lips. "Oh, thank merciful…"

"All units are on the move," I told him. Sakamoto directed the other two men to strap Katsura to a makeshift gurney. Sakata seemed unwilling to part with his friend; it took him a moment to realize what they were trying to do. He relented with difficulty, and switched his attention back to me. "I think they had enough time to disappear. The attack is called off. We regroup in Mito and go at it again."

"So what the fuck are you doing here?"

"We came to get you."

"That makes no sense," he shook his head.

"I know," I agreed. "What happened here? Where's the rest of the unit?"

Sakata looked down at his now empty lap. I would have given anything to take back those last words but it was too late. His expression broke even though his voice was steady. "It's just me and Zura."

It was just him and Katsura. Not him and Katsura out of the whole unit, but out of… everything that had stepped onto this battlefield. I looked away out of politeness, giving him time to begin breathing again. What I saw made me swallow. Bodies peppered the clearing, continuing downhill for at least a mile. Amidst the abstract chaos, I noticed strange details - a man's head lying in the middle of a path, its expression serene; two swords pushed into the same body, creating a perfect X. It was pure savagery. How long had it been just him and Katsura? I desperately wanted to know but could not possibly ask him.

So this is what the last man standing looked like, I thought. He was a pathetic sight. My heart bled for him.

"So you just, what? Fought them off?" one of the two other soldiers shouted stupidly. "But there were thousands here!"

"More like hundreds," Sakata mumbled.

"Still, how did you survive? How did just the tw-,"

"You!" I cried. "What is your name?"

The man gulped. "Kurokono, sir."

"Shut up, Kurokono."

"Yes, sir."

Sakata gave a hollow chuckle. He pulled on the handle of his sword and slowly lifted himself up. "Yeah, shut up, Kurokono."

We carried Katsura into the forest, and quickly down the hill, moving in a general north-easterly direction. Sakata marched with us, never asking for help. If he had been difficult to read before, he was impossible to read now. He spoke less than ever, laughed only when Sakamoto put a good hour into pretending to be an idiot, slept… not at all. We were pinned by airships three more times in the first weeks, making slow progress until we crossed the Abukuma river. There, we had the incredible luck to meet up with a part of our outfit. No, that was not fair – it had not been luck but Sakamoto's incredible foresight. Katsura started walking again soon after that, but I could see past his dismissive smiles. He was wounded deeply. In more ways that one. I did not know what to do; how to speak to him. How could I tell him it was alright? He was living my nightmare.

I longed to be a man with three times my experience. Or three times my courage. I longed to tell Katsura something his teacher would have told him in this situation; I wanted to be that big of a man for my old lieutenant.

I was not.

They started calling Sakata a demon after that. I did not know why Katsura did not receive the same treatment. Then again, I did.

* * *

 _The point of this chapter was to give you a background for the famous "If you have the time to die beautifully..." scene. Then it just escaped from me a little bit. Hope you enjoyed it!_

[1] _Class-breakers are ships which surpass the projected boundaries of their type. Basically, it is a ship too big to be that fast, and too heavy to be that mobile. That's sort of what I wanted to hint at here – a very quick description of an impossible ship and a shout-out to how Sakamoto would eventually own such ships._

 _I am preparing one more chapter (maybe another two-parter, but the same story line), and then I really have to get back to my other story. In the meanwhile, may I take a moment to say that I have really grown to like Mikuni. He did start out as a POV character whose main function would be to represent the change Gintoki et al. brought to the rebel camp, but then he grew a personality of his own as I asked the crucial question, what would it be like to be Gintoki's superior officer? I don't doubt that he would have driven any commander of his crazy within days. It would take a pretty magnanimous man to nevertheless admire him, and even become a little bit like him. So, Mikuni - kudos to you!_

 _Thank you again for your comments. Keep them up, please!_


	6. Chapter 6

**See you there, part 1**

Hashimoto squinted at my handwriting, drops of sweat finding ways between the creases on his forehead. "Sakamoto… Ryouma[1]?"

"Tatsuma," I corrected automatically.

"You want him promoted to me?" His eyebrow went up in an uncharacteristically tart expression.

"Yes, sir."

"Why?"

"He is wasted in my unit," I said simply. "Has a mind for strategy, sir. Comes naturally to him, just takes some prompting."

"Yes, I remember. He was useful in the South… Merchant boy," he muttered distractedly. His mouth twisted into a pout, as though he had bitten into something sour and was not entirely sure whether he should swallow it. It was prejudice, and naturally so. Merchant boys did not win battles. At best, they peddled arms.

"He has gotten good with the blade, sir," I added, feeling a little bit as though I was selling an ox at market myself. "Good sense of humour…"

Hashimoto snorted, but a wry twinkle was playing in the corners of his eyes. "Very well. Anything else, Captain?"

I thought of a thousand things to say. "No. Just… I'll see you later. Out there."

Hashimoto smiled, round face looking almost fatherly despite the iron-coloured eyebrows clashing on his forehead. There were far too many years of hierarchy between us to allow an embrace but I offered my old master a long, formal bow. He returned it with just as much heartfelt ceremony.

Sakata was waiting for me outside the General's tent. He rested his weight on one leg, picking his nose nonchalantly. The pose looked out of place considering his full military gear but then so did many things about him. I felt guilty for transferring his friend out of the unit without speaking to him about it but it would never have been his decision to make anyway. It was mine.

"Ca'tain?" he turned to me. Half-lidded and relaxed, his eyes looked entirely black.

"I had Sakamoto promoted to the General," I stated, daring him into a reaction.

There was none. "Yeah, he told me you'd do it."

"It will be a perfect position for him," I defended stiffly.

"Hey, good fucking riddance," he chuckled, flicking junk from his nose. His tone was harsh and flippant. I knew him well enough by now not to mistake it for uncaring. "Besides. Don't want him riding into this shitfest. Boy's got no talent with the sword."

Only what little you've taught him, I thought at Sakata but did not comment. Leading our way back to the campsite, I felt my heart thunder against my chest. We were assembled again, over a year later; hundreds of us. Thousands. More than there had been in Mutsu, in fact. Hard times had tested our resolve in the meanwhile. Itou died during our escape. Not even in battle; his ship went down off the coast of Hata[2]. Murakami and a hundred others went down with him. We didn't know until we landed two days later. I saw my old master cry then, for the first time. I had cried as well, that evening, getting drunk with Aizawa. Hashimoto stepped into command afterwards. Nobody argued.

The Amanto were on us all around Tosa, but we gave them the slip and sailed north, burned the boats in the bay to put them off of our scent. Things started looking up after that. I condensed my face into a tight frown as Sakata and I arrived at the camp. He began barking orders at my soldiers, making sure that we were ready to go. I took the moment to eat, but could not take in more than a few mouthfuls. I shooed rice away from my tofu, then mixed them back together again listlessly. It was just nerves, I told myself. Like always before a battle.

Shitfest… shitfest was right. The task before us was big. I recited it voicelessly, over and over again, as though saying it in my mind would make it happen that way through some ancient magic of words.

"We're ready, Captain."

It was Kuramoto, coming to stand beside me. His red-and-black armour glistened in the harsh sunlight, making him seem like a giant beetle. The hair on his temples had gone white, I noticed.

"Mrm," I mumbled, portioning my food into pieces I would not put into my mouth.

"Sir?"

"Yes, we are ready," I decided to agree.

"Captain," he hesitated. "Wouldn't it be better if-"

"No."

Kuramoto sighed but did not press the point. I knew what he had been about to say. Wouldn't it be better if Suzuki was my second lieutenant? Kuramoto did not like working with Sakata. If my unit was the heavy artillery of our army, Sakata was the loose cannon, just as likely to listen to orders as he was to ignore them. At least that was his reputation. His soubriquet had spread among the troops like a forest fire. Crazy stories about him piled upon hyperbolae, and he had become somewhat of a myth, told around the campsite. At first, I thought it was a good thing; admiration might have taught him more responsibility, and maybe even tempted him to get off his ass and into a command position. I had been wrong. The first time I heard someone in my unit say he would not go to battle with Sakata because all of his comrades turned up dead, I gave the man latrine duty for a month. Had Kuramoto now tried to convince me a little bit harder, I might have done the same to him.

Instead, Kuramoto massaged his thigh, looking over the busy scene before us. Men in armour fell into place, forming squares and triangles while Sakata shouted them into shape, much like I was doing to my rice. Will they too be eaten by some terrible war machine by the end of this day? I frowned in disgust, and threw the remainder of my food into the fire.

Just nerves. Like always.

"Let's go."

Kuramoto nodded.

I attached my swords to my belt more securely and wiped the sweat off of my face. Damn this heat. Running in it was not going to be pleasant but I could tell it was the sticky calm before a thunderstorm. The air was standing still around us, heavy, wet with anticipation, like an eager woman. I laughed at the comparison. Sakata got to me. Lightning flashed out to the southeast and I counted. 12 miles out. A summer storm would not make our jobs easier, but it would also make airborne attacks a right pain in our enemies' ugly asses. I remembered the legends of the storm that had saved this country from a Great Eastern Army[3] and the beginning of a smile started forming on my face.

To hell with nerves. As always.

"We're ready," I grunted and turned to lead my troops.

X X X X

The sky opened up with a loud crack; a giant dragon of light zigzagged over us. It lit up our faces in stark black and white before the dark grey clouds sewed themselves shut once more. A moment later, a blanket of tepid rain descended upon the thirsty ground. We were drenched within seconds.

Kuramoto hissed next to me. Some men cursed.

"Well. At least the weather is shitty," I heard Sakata sigh. Then he raised his voice over the ferocious bang of droplets. "On your toes, twinkly bitches! We're going in."

The men shuffled more securely into position with a ripple of clangs. I looked out over the muddy plain before us, stretching between me and the ugly, metal building looming ahead. Once more, I mapped the distance at which they could hit us with their machine guns. If we succeeded today, I realized, that would be our ugly, metal building, and those would be our machine guns. The only thing we needed to do was to stay out of range and trick the ground troops out. Buy an hour. That was it. Buy an hour. What was an hour in the eternity of time? Nothing. No more instrumental to its passing than a single drop of water was in this downpour.

An hour on the battlefield, however, was an eternity in and of itself. It would not sell itself cheap, that one hour. But neither would we.

The more forces they deployed here the better, I told myself sternly. It will allow Hashimoto and Satou to scissor more easily across the battlefield from the flanks, swallowing the Amanto line. At the same time, Aizawa would pelt them with stolen cannons, the booty from our time in Tosa; he was probably bringing them into position even now. He also had only one thing he needed to do – take out the fortress' long guns. Then, once we had siphoned every last soldier from there, drawn them into our killing field, Takasugi would take the Kiheitai into the keep itself and cut the aliens' collective throat. And we would have won our first position. Our foothold, our base. Our castle.

I only had to buy an hour out there.

"Ready!" I bellowed. My answer was the unison breathing of the men around me. "Advance!"

We started at a trot, then faster, armour and weapons jingling rhythmically. Raindrops bit my heated skin and forced my eyes into a squint. I could barely see ahead.

"Aaargh!" I growled, speeding up. My men followed with eager grunts and barks. Now I could see the outline of enemy troops as they filled the field. A genuinely wolfish grin cut itself into my mouth. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sakata sported one very much like it. They were taking the bait. Excellent.

Rain made a beautiful, crystalline noise on my blade as I drew it. I wondered whether the Amanto heard it. They were moving at a slower pace. Hah! Were they just late off the mark, or were they afraid of the slaughter we were bringing with us? Could they hear it chuckle in our breathing; sing against the edge of our swords?

"I trade ten thousand years," my breathless voice sounded like a hollowed out snarl. "FOR THIS ONE, PERFECT MOMENT!"

"Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years[4]!" echoed across my line.

With an almighty yell, we rammed into the wall of enemies before us, hacking through the first row like one giant sabre. Almost immediately, three men broke through on the left and I surged in after them. This was what momentum could do! They were crumbling before us easily. Easily…

I saw Sakata's arms slouch before I heard it: a gasp was rippling over my unit. Swords crossed and stayed crossed, advancing no further. Finally, I saw it too; our enemy. Blood drained from my head. Horrible realization slackened my muscles.

The body clutching in pain at the end of my blade was my body. The grimacing face above it was my face; his blood was my blood. These were men; humans, like us! They had sent men to fight us!

No wonder we were cutting through them like through butter. These were not samurai. These were not even soldiers. These were untrained peasants, given armour and weapons, and sent to kill the warriors who were trying to save them. I stared in utter shock at the man whose guts I had pierced. The first man I had ever killed. He stared back with bottomless fear carved forever into his dead, grey features.

"Shit," I heard Kuramoto hiccough. "Oh, shit. Shit." His blade was also already red. The treacherous colour was slowly washing out in the rain.

To my right, Sakata could not even make a noise. His arms drooped all the way down. A hook-nosed man with short cropped hair, barely holding a huge axe, saw his opening and lifted the heavy thing.

"OOOOOOOH!" he announced his attack, stupidly, and swung downwards at my lieutenant. I stopped thinking. My sword twisted free. I knocked Sakata out of the way and cut off the axe-man's arms in the same move.

"Attack! Don't just stand there, you dumbasses! ATTACK!" I screamed. I could not let my men have time to think. I could not let them have time to feel. But more than anything else, I could not let the alien cunts break our momentum, even if they had broken our hearts. "Attack now!"

They obeyed, my vastly more experienced soldiers quickly finding ways around their stunned stalemates. I hooked an arm around Sakata, pulled him up to his place roughly, and followed my own order. Each cut I drew over human flesh made me sick. The alien fucks had even dressed some of them in samurai armour. Probably stolen off my comrades' corpses in previous battles, and put on these poor, wretched boys… My sword sang through them all the same.

Kuramoto shouted orders with bitter resolution in his voice. "Keep the line! One step at a time!"

I nodded my thanks to him. "Stick together now! As one."

"Did you have to-" Sakata's cold rage made me look to my right. His voice was a whisper but I heard it very clearly. "Why would- Degenerate, fucking, sadistic…" I was half expecting him to look deranged but he did not. His face had turned to stone despite the water standing in his eyes. I blinked mine away. That was enough to lose sight of him.

Sakata dove forwards, breaking my line. I just managed to catch a glimpse of the white overcoat moving quickly through a multitude of hapless men when the enemy line parted once more. He was directly ahead of me, slashing left and right with gruesome ease. The rain around him exploded before it reached the ground, mixing with sprays of blood, and he was the centre of that crimson whirlwind. Bodies sank into the muck at his feet. Sakata's despised nickname suddenly bubbled up in my throat. I barely managed to swallow it back down in time. It left a taste of copper against my tongue.

"After me! Centre, FORWARD AND IN!" I bellowed. We joined the melee, funnelling in an orderly fashion and puncturing defences as an arrow would meat. My men spread out to either side like deadly wings, flapping through their numbers. Sakata was our talons, leading the way. He was ferocious. Or feral, I could not make up my mind.

It was as though he wanted to kill them all… He did, I realized. So that we wouldn't have to.

"He is a god damned monster," Kuramoto breathed into my ear as he found my side once more. He nodded at Sakata with contempt. "Look at him!"

I could not respond, but I swore I would beat the dumb out of him for this later. Stupid fuck. Didn't he understand—

A sudden onslaught pushed several of my men onto me. Our line condensed against it. Backup, I thought wildly!

"Let me through! Let me through!" I screamed, elbowing past my soldiers so I could see what was going on.

Kuramoto was faster. "They are attacking their own troops! Sir, the Amanto!"

It was true. Over the heads of badly armed men – their meat shield – I saw a large group of Amanto mercenaries, grimacing as they pushed the frightened men forwards. They were not even trying to command them. They were herding them, like wolves did flocks of sheep, metal teeth stabbing out. I saw one of them lift a giant mallet gleefully. It landed on a human body with a disgusting, wet crack. Bullets echoed. Now there was real panic in the frantic shoving. Kuramoto was swept back from me, stumbling as two enemy soldiers fell onto him. Shit. They were more effective at breaking our formation with their desperate fear then they had been with their weapons.

"Line! Fall in line!" I ordered but, once again, Sakata disobeyed. He did not even bother killing the fleeing men around him any longer, shoving through them in silence as he honed in on the real target.

"Fuck," I hissed, barely able to stand. He was right in principle: forward was the only way out. But I would never reform my line if we all tried to punch through like that. "Triangles!"

Kuramoto could still not get up but somebody else, maybe Sasaki, had the good sense to spread the order instead of him. "Triangles, you assholes! We sit it out!"

I led by example, plunging to my knee and stabbing my shield into the mud. It took my men an eternity to reorder themselves, some falling back behind me, others in similar formations on either side of me. Bodies crashed against us, over our heads, onto our shields. I slipped backwards, almost knocked out when a fleeing soldier kneed me in the face. My shield locked against those of my men. New thuds sent merciless vibrations down my arm. Hazed, I lost my grip on the handle, and the tip of our triangle smashed inwards. A man to my left was trampled underfoot before another could close the gap.

After another eternity, the kicks lessened. I scrambled up, head screaming with pain and dim with vertigo. "Get ready," I managed to squeeze out. "Up!"

Somebody pulled me by my arm. I wanted to tell them that was not what I had meant, but my men were already on their feet.

Kuramoto was in my face. "Are you alright, sir?"

He looked like hell, broken nose spluttering blood down his front and a cut on his skull painting his white temples red, but I only managed to grab his forearm reassuringly before we both had to block. The mercenaries were on us! I took a hit from above, almost going back into the mud from the force of it. My feet surged forward, muscle memory from a life's worth of training the only thing moving me. I sliced through my opponent. A blow from below almost caught my thigh. The small, grinning bastard juggling four needle-thin knives rolled into me again. Before I could react, he put one straight through my calf. I cursed as pain shot through me, but my body knew what to do once more. I swung backwards, blade catching him on the rise from his crouch.

Shit, they had spread us out. I had no line! Where was my line?! My mind screamed. I spared a glance to either side. My right was empty. Ah, but Kuramoto was two yards away to my left. I yelled, "Come together! Everybody cluster, cluster!"

I barely had time to pull the knife out of my flesh when a fox-like Amanto dove in for my neck. I parried; he made another pass, spinning me so that my back was to the enemy. I just caught sight of a heavy weapon swinging down.

It got me on the shoulder, pushing me off balance. No! That was Sakata, half of his weight on me and blocking above head. He growled, deep in his throat, and shoved the attacker off – it was the bastard with the mallet. I scrambled to save his thigh from the fox, who was no longer sure whom to attack first. I took advantage of the moment and charged him, feigned, drew him in. My sword split his chest cleanly.

"Captain!" Kuramoto was at my side with Sasaki. A few others were also joining us.

"Group us up! NOW!" I screamed at them and ran to help my other lieutenant.

There was no need. Sakata had manoeuvred the big fucker into position masterfully. Before I even reached him, he passed under one lumbering arm with the agility of a snake, and took it cleanly off. His face stretched into a crazed grin. I stared stupidly at it, hypnotised.

He walked around, almost lazily, to the front of the kneeling, screaming Amanto, and brought his sword down in a short stab. Two, three, four… Finally, with the fifth one, he hacked the head off.

"Group up," I told him. He nodded, face back to normal, and ran off to collect more of us from the right.

The rain had eased to a steady shower. That meant the Amanto would be sending airborne units out soon, but at least I could see the field now. Sasaki guarded my flank while I searched the landscape. I could not see Hashimoto or Satou anywhere. They should have arrived by now… And where was Aizawa? Why wasn't he pummelling the fortress? We were keeping out of range for the machine guns, and they wouldn't risk killing their own soldiers with the long nines. At least, not just yet. But why wasn't Aizawa already blasting them?

Hellfire, how long was this one hour? How many eternities have I already spent here?

I did the only thing I could do and began running interference from one circle to the next, drawing my men towards the centre. Slowly, sluggishly, we were coming back together. Kuramoto was trying to do the same on the other side but I could see that he was stuck there with his half of the unit. They were being swallowed by the mercenaries.

"Sakata!" I bellowed. "To the left!"

I had no idea whether he heard me. Forgetting the pain in my calf, I circled behind my raggedy line to Kuramoto's group. Three men along the edges of it dove suddenly backwards, smashing into me. One of them had not been fast enough. His head exploded, brains splattering over us.

A stocky, middle-aged woman was in the centre of the circle. She looked entirely human but for the porcelain tan and icy grey eyes. Scarred, lined face was stretched into a terrifying grimace. Kuramoto charged her with two others. One, she smashed aside immediately. Kuramoto tried to block her upswing but she tossed him into the air as though he were a rag doll. I had time only to inhale when the tip of her weapon regurgitated bullets and ripped Kuramoto to pieces in midair. He fell onto the ground and disappeared underfoot, dead.

I screamed. Kuramoto's other man flew past me, broken, as I went at her blindly. The alien smiled, tiny pupils drowning in cold irises, and brought the umbrella down. It took all of my strength just to keep my spine from snapping. The hit buried me into the mud, knee cracking painfully against a hidden stone. She shrugged her weapon free easily and lifted it up once more. I would not survive another blow like that…

Then Sakata was on her back. The Amanto reared, kicking him off, but Sakata found his feet quickly. He caught my gaze and we rushed her from opposite sides. With blinding speed, she opened her umbrella against us, making us bounce back like stones skipping over the lake.

"What the he-?"

Then, as though on cue, rhythmic pounding echoed over the field. I gasped. No! Oh, no. We were in range. I had forgotten to pay attention to the lay of the land.

"Retreat! Ten yards centre back, now!" But it was too late. My men were already being shredded all around me, bursting into fountains of blood, meat and bone. One man's leg was shot clean off. He writhed in the mud. I could not help him. Someone yelled for me and I saw fresh Amanto troops appear from behind. Fuck, they had outflanked us. I hadn't even seen them coming. There was Sasaki, being pushed towards us instead of the other way around.

Where the fuck were Hashimoto and Satou? The air began buzzing. They were sending out the airborne units. I looked around desperately, swallowed and made up my mind. This was all the eternity I could have my men pay for.

"BREAK OFF! Everyone, RUN!"

As I said it, something smashed against my side. I felt ribs splinter. I was knocked away, vision black, body flaccid, unable to breathe. On the edge of consciousness, I heard another man get torn up by bullets right next to me. Wet thuds sounded out against tissue. I could not tell whether they had come from the tower or my attacker. My men! Had they heard the order? Shit, I had to get them out of here. I could not speak.

The woman with the umbrella was swinging after Sakata, pushing him towards me. I could only watch, completely paralysed. Sakata was knocked backwards violently. He managed to regain control of his tumble, but the grinning monster was already rushing him. I begged my arm to move. I could see my sword, right in front of me, but my right side was completely useless. I still could not breathe. If only I could give Sakata a moment to escape…

I howled with pain, pulling out my short sword with the left hand. Rolling blindly, I stabbed down. It was pure, foolish luck I struck the umbrella wielding alien and pinned one of her feet to the ground. She growled viciously. There, I thought, and lay back with a sigh. I was done. Get out of here, all of you.

I saw the swing come down on me. The next thing I knew, I was covered with warmth.

It was not s bad to die. The pain should stop any-

"Captain! Captain! Get up, you dumb fuck!"

I squinted. It was Sakata. He had a bullet hole just above the collar bone; I could see it was still smoking. The woman who had shot it was lying in two pieces on either side of me, her guts all over my face and chest.

"Come on!" he insisted, pulling at my arm. "We gotta run!"

No, he had to run. New shots zipped past us. Where were my men? He had to retreat with them.

"N-nn," I tried to speak.

"Climb up on me," Sakata said, trying to manipulate me onto his back.

"No!" I finally found my voice. It was weak and gasping. "Lead, the retreat. That's, an order." He ignored me yet again. I gripped his armour and screamed, "You are not here to save everybody, Sakata!"

"The FUCK do you know what I'm here for?!" he bellowed back.

A bullet struck my head.

* * *

 _Thank you all for commenting, as always._

 _[1]_ _Sakamoto Ryouma was the original 19_ _th_ _century general upon whom Tatsuma is based. Both their names mean "the dragon horse", and could be written the same way, so it is no wonder Hashimoto read it wrongly. Another little nod to history I could not resist._

 _[2]_ _Hata is a district in the modern province of Kouchi, Edo-period Tosa, where Sakamoto is actually from. It is located at the very southernmost part of Shikoku, and completely open to the Pacific._

 _[3]_ _The Great Eastern Army Mikkun is talking about are the Mongol horde under Kublai Khan, who launched an invasion Japan on the 13_ _th_ _century. His navy was destroyed by two typhoons before reaching it, after which they were become known as the Winds of the Gods. I.E. Kamikaze._

 _[4]_ _A bit more Japanese lore for you (since a very kind reviewer mentioned she enjoyed them). "Ten thousand year" is the literal translation of the infamous "Banzai". Originally, the phrase was used by the Chinese to honour the Emperor. In the Second World War, Japanese militarists used it in a similar context. "Tennouheika Banzai", literally, "(May the) Celestial Emperor (live for) ten thousand years", was the Imperial Japanese version of Heil Hitler. The way the samurai used it, however, was completely different. It was part of the fatalism of Bushido. When I read up on it, I came across the interpretation Mikuni shouted out: I will trade_ _ **ten thousand years of my life**_ _for this one, prefect moment before me._

 _On the subject, let me just share something about the other Kamikaze, the more famous suicide pilots (wow, we really got on to difficult subjects). I once read the letter one pilot wrote to his family before going on a mission. He expressed this fatalism very well. "Congratulate me! I have been given this magnificent opportunity to die." The letter would have been delivered to his family after his death was confirmed._


	7. Chapter 7

**See you there, part 2**

Warm light pooled past the open doors, painting orange rectangles on the floor mats. My throat was parched, mouth dry and sticky. My legs were pins and needles beneath me. I dared not shift them, paying attention to my master. Hashimoto paced to and fro in front of us, bamboo training sword secure in his hands. Two dozen boys around me followed his every movement.

"Death awaits every man. We cannot choose the time, or the place, or the circumstances. We may only choose how we meet it." His voice thundered over our heads, carrying across the room. "A death met with fear is a dog's death. A death met with foolishness, with cowardice, for self-preservation, without self-control, is likewise a dog's death. The only death we may aspire to is death in service to our masters. This is the only death worthy of a man."

I frowned. Surely dogs could die in the service of their masters. Did they then die a man's death? Would dogs aspire to such things, or did they scoff at their dead fellow and eat his body? I have seen it happen. With dogs and with men.

"The great Master Yamamoto[1] says," he bounced the sword on his shoulder. "The samurai is only realized in the presence of death."

Oh, hell, I thought irreverently. Great example of a Catch 22, that one. All the realized were no longer here to tell us what they had realized. Either way, we had to go into the ever-after if we meant to chase wisdom. Useless, by definition.

"He further teaches us, if the choice is between life and death, a samurai will choose death. There is no other reasoning."

"Simple, straightforward, easy to remember. Like every other sort of bullshit."

Whoa. Where did that come from? Oh, crap, I had said it!

Hashimoto rounded on me and whacked me on the side with the practice sword. It stole breath from my lungs. I coughed. My classmates sniggered nervously. "Do you have something to add, Mikuni?"

"No, sir," I mumbled but rebelliousness churned my stomach. I looked up at my master's cold face and summoned all my courage. "It's just that… How are we to win a war, if we're all going out there to die? I, I… I need people who want to live!" What the hell was I talking about? What war? I was eleven years old.

"Shush, Mikkun," Aizawa whispered in my ear.

"People who want to live, run," Hashimoto replied laconically. "They cannot win for their backs are turned."

"People who want to die, die. They cannot win for they are on their arses in the mud." It came out of my mouth, but it was not my voice. I gulped and cleared my throat. "It, it makes no sense. I think."

"The reasoning is thus," he said angrily. "A peasant searches for the perfect crop. A merchant searches for the perfect sale. And a samurai searches for the perfect death. This is the way of things-"

"No!" I protested. My side burned from the hit. "Look at, erm-" forgot the name again. "Look at Sakafuck!"

"Look at who?" my master condensed his face comically.

"Who? What?" others echoed.

"Sakata!" No, wait. I had meant the other one. But Sakata would do as well. "He was not born samurai. He has no master. Yet I would follow him without invitation or obligation. And neither of us would die like dogs."

Stunned silence met my outburst. Then Hashimoto barked, "You can't be serious!" My fellow students laughed ghoulishly.

"He is the finest man I know," I murmured stubbornly. Better than you. Where were you when I needed you?

Wait, what? I felt terrible bitterness, looking at that round face, that perfect hair. When had I stopped styling my hair like a samurai? Must have been around the time I stopped feeling like one.

"You would follow the, what was it? The White Demon?" Hashimoto gave a truly unsettling chuckle. His head bounced on his neck as though it was no longer attached to it.

"Don't call him that! He does not deserve it." He did.

"He did, he did," the others sounded out the chorus.

Hashimoto indulged me, leaning his bulk on one foot. "Alright then. What makes him such a fine samurai? Is he a good soldier?"

Not by far. He disobeyed every order I gave him, even the order to run. I looked away onto the floor mats. My legs were cold and tingly, my breathing shallow. "He was always there when I needed him," I squeezed out finally. And where were you?

"Is he a fine swordsman?"

Yes and no, I thought. Sakata either had the ugliest form or the most beautiful formlessness I had ever seen. I could not explain this to my fellows, however, so I said nothing as my face burned red.

"Does he follow Bushido?" Hashimoto insisted mockingly.

"No," I answered, and felt spite well up inside me again. "He had never chosen death, not once! He is willing to die for nothing." No, wait. How had Sakata put it? He had put it better.

Hashimoto burst into cold laughter that was entirely unlike him. "Are you even listening to yourself? That boy has been ready to croak since day one!"

"He was willing to kill," I corrected automatically.

"Hah!" my master snarled triumphantly. "So is a madman, so is a mongrel. So is a murderer. This is not Bushido!"

"Ten thousand years! Ten thousand years!" the other boys mocked me. "Ten thousand years of slaughter."

I could not breathe. I felt tremendous hate for my old master at the moment, for my old school mates, and it was seething inside me, filling my throat with bile. Mercy, I was so thirsty.

"Wa-," –ter, I tried to say.

"Not just yet," somebody whispered.

Hashimoto went on derisively. "Didn't he come in, all high and mighty, and say he would get everybody out alive? Swinging his dick! Even you bought into it. You silly, stupid, cowardly boy! You think life was ever his goal?"

"No… Please, wa-"

"Yes! Everything you admire about this one is based in the lowliest instincts. Envy of his utter lack of fear, jealousy of his ability." Hashimoto made a face at me, bending lower. "You are afraid of him, aren't you?"

"I am not afraid…"

"You are terrified. As you are terrified to die."

"I am not…" Suddenly, I was on my feet, facing Hashimoto. Hot water poured down my face. I pressed my fists into his throat, jabbed him in the eyes, but I had no effect. He smirked from on high, untouchable, hardly even there. Where were you? Where were you, I thought at him. It tore out of me like a howl. "Where were you? You promised you would be there! I waited, I waited… You didn't come!"

"How do you know, Mikuni? You ran! You didn't wait for anybody. You ran."

"I, I-, I did not run."

"Ten thousand years, Mikuni! You couldn't wait for an hour!"

"I did not run!" I defended, trying to crush his skull. My hands were useless. "I did not run! I did not run! I did not leave…"

"Shush, Ca'tain."

"Water. Please." My words came out garbled. My hate hurt me. "I did not run. I did not leave them."

"Shhh. Gotta do this first."

Wait. That was Sakata's voice.

"Figures you'd wake up for the worst part. You daft, pain-loving fuck."

"Wh-?"

"Still, nice to know you're in there."

"Mrmmh."

"Here goes."

A sharp pain in my chest lit up my nervous system and pulled me awake. I had trouble opening my eyes, so for a few moments I could hear only my wheezing breath and a hissing, shushing sound. I managed to pry my lids open. They had been crusted over and welded shut. By blood, I guessed. Where was I?

Above me, I saw only black, but a tiny light was warming my face. I turned toward it. Sakata was lit up from below, making his grime-covered features seem even more sharp than usual. He was still in full combat gear, except for the white cloak which I could just see thrown over my legs. He was kneeling next to me, staring at my side.

"Wwwhh," I tried to speak.

"You'll get water in a moment," he told me.

That was not it. I wanted to know where we were. What time was it? Why was it dark? It had been around noon not a few…

The shush turned to a gurgle, and Sakata's tense face relaxed a bit. "Good. Didn't actually know what I was doing, by the way."

He withdrew a knife and a piece of reed from above my ribs, leaving the hole to burp a few more drops of blood. As I slowly began breathing more easily, I finally understood. My lung must have collapsed. He had punctured my chest to let the air out. I tried to look lower down my body but the attempt only sent red hot shrapnel of pain through my side. I could not feel my right arm at all.

"Wouldn't do that," he warned.

"Whhh, w…" I tried to speak when everything went black and Sakata suddenly disappeared from view. I panicked. "S-! Ah! Anng…" There was nothing but darkness around me once more. Don't leave me here! Did I pass out again? Where did he go?

Shaggy hair came back into view, glinting silver along its shadowy outline. Sakata scooped my head up gently and I felt something touch my lips. "Drink," he ordered. "Slowly."

I did. Gulping hurt me, but the tepid water helped me regain some of my senses. We were in a make-shift shelter. Now that the tiny fire he had built was out, I could see the canopy of the forest above us, rippling under a gentle breeze. My body went from hot to freezing cold as I thought about it.

"More?" he asked.

I tried to nod but my head was too heavy. Thankfully, he understood, patiently letting me drink. We were in the forest. We were alone. It was night time. I was wounded, I couldn't say how badly. Worse than ever before, by the feel of it. Pieces started falling into place. I finished another small mouthful of water and smacked my lips together to try speaking again, but Sakata was faster.

"You got shot in the head. It only grazed you, though. The real problem are the ribs. Fixed that up as best I could. Still," he gave me a smile. I did not buy it. "You made it this far. Thought I'd lost you there a couple of times but you're a stubborn old bastard."

I was not old! The little prick. But a more pressing question ached on my tongue. "M… mm, unit? Ba'tl?"

Sakata nodded. "The battle's over. Sasaki led the retreat with the right wing. The left had to run willy-nilly." He looked away for a second. "I don't know where the others are. By the time I found cover for us, they were gone. I'll try tracking them down in the morning."

Why didn't he stick with the unit and leave me like I fucking said he should do? Then he would know where my men were. Insubordinate hick! Instead, I asked, "Hashh, 'oto?"

"They never showed."

I felt bile raise up in my throat. At first, I thought it was my resentment but as a hot trickle of acidic dribble slid down my cheek, I realized I had vomited something. Sakata wiped me clean without a word. Strange. I hadn't retched or anything. I tried squeezing my abdominals experimentally. Pain dissuaded me quickly.

"Ah!"

"What'd you do?" Sakata asked. "Told you to stop moving, for fuck sakes."

"Mmmrh," I grunted.

"No more of that shit, are we clear?"

He was giving _me_ orders? I swore to slap him silly for it later. Oh. That reminded me. "Khrrrr,moto?" God, I sounded retarded. I tried again. "Ku, ra, moto?"

Sakata stared at me for a while. "Dead, Cat'ain."

Yes, I remembered now. Flung into the air and pieced by some alien bitch. Then they started shooting at us. I tried raising my right hand to check my head but nothing happened. My body was too heavy to move.

Sakata sat back, careful this time to stay in my limited field of vision. With a sigh, he took off his breastplate and opened the white shirt underneath. I watched him bandage his shoulder, check a cut on his chest. In the darkness, I could not tell how bad his wounds were. He moved in the same lazy way he always did. It made it very difficult to know when he was in pain.

"Hurt, bad?" I asked.

"Nah," he waved his head. "Thing went cleanly through and through."

I had actually meant myself. "Colll."

"What?"

" ."

He nodded with sympathy. "I know but I can't build a fire. They're still looking for us."

I nodded.

"Rest, Ca'tain," he said. "Things'll be better in the morning."

I wanted to tell him morning only brought light, nothing else. Not clarity, certainly not improvement. I wanted to tell him how furious I was that he had stayed with me instead of going on with the rest of the unit. I wanted to tell him how afraid I was of falling back to sleep. But by the time I found my voice, I was asleep already.

My dreams were misshapen things, shifting sensations, pain and fever. Hashimoto appeared in them with terrible regularity, mocking me, but so did Sakata, and Kuramoto, and Katsura, and Aizawa. There was no respite with any of them. Every now and again, I would open my eyes to slowly moving scenery, but I could not be sure whether that meant I was awake or not. Vaguely, I knew I was being carried, but my mind was blurry, reality and fantasy dripping into one another like ink staining water. The ground seemed to be strewn with corpses. Their sweet smell was all over me; rotten flowers decaying on thorny vines. Maybe it was me. I could hear Sakata's laboured breathing as he made his way over uneven terrain. He slipped and stumbled, never letting go of the grip he had on my knees.

"Whhh?" I tried to ask.

"Go back to sleep, Ca'tain," he told me.

"Aanhh," I mumbled, realizing the stupidity of asking a dream whether I was dreaming.

"Shush. Go to sleep."

His voice was thick. I thought he might have been weeping but I could not see his face. I wanted him to turn.

"Saa. Kngh."

He ignored me. I was about to try again, head heavy and eyes blurry, when Sakata came alive. He slid to the side as quickly as he could and laid both of us down into a dip in the ground, sheltered from immediate view by roots and foliage. My body protested painfully.

"Nngh!"

"Shhh," he ordered. Decades of training helped me muffle my moans. Only then did I hear voices. Even if I could not understand the words, I understood the tone. They were Amanto mercenaries; scavengers, most likely, and not a hunting party, judging by how loudly they were speaking to each other. Next to me, Sakata tensed as their ugly laughter came closer to our position. I could see his muscles coil and extend, feeding the resolve in his burgundy gaze. If they found us now, he would fight them. He was in no shape to fight. I summoned the last of my will, and murmured, "Go." It came out audibly only on the second try.

Sakata's eyes snapped onto me. Their edges were red and raw, I noticed. I gave him a crooked smile. "Go." Get out of here, leave me, just go.

The voices were trailing off, thank the merciful heavens. Sakata did not relax.

"Wait here," he breathed through clenched teeth.

What else was I going to do, I wanted to say, but he gave me no time for cheek, disappearing over the ridge. No! No, wait, goddamn it! I wanted to scream after him, but even in my delirium I was not stupid enough to attract attention to us like that. I lay there for what seemed like ages, heart pounding against every broken bone in my body, stupidly wondering which was it going to be: would he return and continue dragging me through the woods until I finally died on his back, or would he not return, and I would die here alone. I could not tell which was more terrible.

It would still not be a dog's death, I told to myself, holding on to this thought as though it was the golden thread keeping my reality together. A dog's death, I realized, was death in service of a master who did not care. Who did not even show up. Why hadn't he shown up? I had bought an hour! I had bought more than that. That was supposed to be all I had to do. Where was he, my old master? Why hadn't he showed up?

I heard screams from the distance but could not quite keep awake. Sakata, you moron. You stupid, stupid boy. Slaughter them for me.

Rotten flowers sucked me in. The ink spread over water and I was surrounded by blackness once more.

XXXX

There was a fire crackling next to me, bouncing off the uneven earthy walls of a cavern. A hailstorm was raging outside. Ice pounded the canopy while the wind bent it ferociously this way and that. I could not feel my limbs at all, and for a while I merely lay there, staring at the brown-black-and-red ceiling, surprised to still be alive. Then I noticed that my head was clearer, my mouth less filled with cotton and razors. I tried turning my gaze towards the fire and found I could do so with almost no pain.

Sakata was sitting there, dressed in fresh clothes. Amanto clothes. His sword was next to his thigh, as was a bag, several metal canisters, and an assortment of different tubes and pills. He was concentrated on mashing something up between two pieces of flat rock. I noticed that I too had been dressed in layers of ill-fitting garments. My chest was bandaged rather tightly, and my right arm was immobilized and tied to it.

He looked at me at the same moment as I tried to think of what to ask first.

"Birch bark," he explained. "Should help with the pain. Although that alien stuff probably already worked its magic. You look better. Do you think we can eat these?" He nodded to the side where I saw a pile of mushrooms.

"You gave me. Amanto medicine?" It took me two breaths to say it, but it came out rather clearly.

"Scavengers always carry first aid kits," he shrugged, as though that explained everything. "Got some other supplies as well. No, but honestly, Ca'tain, you think we can eat these?"

I squinted at the mushroom he was holding between two fingers. It looked white, regular and entirely too innocent. "You can eat all mushrooms. It's just that some, you can eat only once."

Sakata gave me a terse look then reached his hand over and rested it against my forehead. "Fever's down."

"Where are we?" I asked.

He looked as though he did not want to answer but then thought the better of it. "Two days' crawl southwest from the battlefield. We're turning north tomorrow. Rendezvous point in another day, day and a half. You know, I think it's fine to boil these."

He dumped his mushrooms into a steaming canister and pushed it closer to the fire. We both stared at it meditatively. I relished in my new-found clarity only for another few moments before my pieced memory of the last two days started coming together.

"Did you find the rest of the unit?" I asked eventually. Honestly, I knew the answer but I wanted to see if he would lie to me.

He did not. "Yes."

Yes. And we were not with them. There could only be one reason why we would not be with them now. I nodded. "And the right wing? Sasaki's half?" My voice came out surprisingly evenly.

Sakata gulped. "Them too."

I felt tears tickle my cheeks. I wanted to wipe them away. My immobilized right arm made no response. The left one twitched lazily, reminding me of the line of broken ribs connected to it. I tried to stop myself but the treacherous water itched on my skin nevertheless, feeding my frustration. I recalled Katsura's devastated face on that bloody battleground months ago, when it had been only him and Sakata left among thousands. I had thought then that he was living my nightmare. I had no idea what a nightmare it really was. At least my broken body better echoed my broken soul.

Sakata politely ignored me, grinding the birch bark resolutely. Once again, he looked older than I was, even with that smooth face. Now cleaned of dirt, I could see the dark circles under his eyes, the tense bumps of his clenched jaw. Did he resent himself as I did? Did he resent me?

That field of bodies he had to carry me through? I knew now that it had not been a dream at all. The same way I knew he had not attacked those mercenary scavengers for the canisters and the medicine. My gaze was seduced to the lacquered elegance of Sakata's blade, leaned on the cave wall opposite me. At least he could still wield it. At least he was not this powerless, useless lump of mangled meat.

"The purpose…" I gulped away the doubt blocking my throat. "The purpose of a warrior is simply to grasp his sword and die[2]."

"Who told you that bullshit?" he asked after a moment, not looking up at me.

"Hashimoto," I bit the word out as though it were a curse.

"Never liked that dude."

"He wasn't wrong," I chuckled darkly. I collected my runaway breath and pronounced as clearly as I could, "Give me that sword, Sakata."

"No, Ca'tain," he said easily and tipped his birch shavings into another canister of boiling water.

He denied me the way he would have denied sweets to a child. My terrible sadness morphed into terrible anger within the space of a single heartbeat. At least the anger was warmer; it anesthetized my pain better than the alien drugs Sakata had fed me, the medicine that would not help me. I gathered all of my strength into a growl. "You think I am afraid to die? Not anymore. Give it to me and walk away. You don't have to watch."

Sakata frowned. "Your fever's back?"

"No, it's not the god damned fever!" I shouted and felt my shattered ribs close around my heart. Maybe it was not my ribs. "I'm not you, Sakata. I don't believe I'm immortal and all powerful! I don't know how to make others believe I am either. And I am not always ready to die. I am now. Give me that fucking sword!"

Sakata was stricken enough to look me in the eyes. For a long moment, the only thing between us was the fire and the sound of the storm outside. His mouth was a mere cut in his face; the sheen in his eyes, glacial. Both of us were preternaturally still, as though we were about to duel. Then my spiteful courage broke in me and I looked away, ashamed. I had no right to ask him that. Not when he had carried me on his back for days. Not when he had bound my wounds, no matter how pointless. My shame hurt me more than my sadness had.

I felt ill. My voice was weak and pleading. "Why didn't you leave me when I told you to? Twice? I was ready, Sakata. I was ready."

He continued staring at me. The side of my face burned under his gaze. Then I heard him sigh. "You think I could have gotten this far if I wasn't dragging your arse around? I had to… save something from that bloodbath."

We fell silent again, listening to the storm outside. Trees ripped in the howling wind. I sympathized. As time dripped by violently, I began finding pieces of my heart. Tears lined my eyes again. I gave it up and let them flow. Commanding officers were not supposed to show weakness before their subordinates. It was shameful and it screwed up troop morale. But I was not ashamed to cry in front of Sakata. God knew I had never really commanded him, and as for the morale of our mighty troop of one and a half… it was about as screwed up as it could get.

Eventually, Sakata fetched the mushroom canister from the fire. Two twigs served as improvised chopsticks while he fished the food out. The grey water dripping from the shrivelled fungi looked singularly unappetizing. Sakata laid them out on a piece of cloth. He blew on one of the grey things and pushed it into my face with a disgustingly maternal expression. "Open wide."

I screwed my face up suspiciously and let a fragile smile fight its way onto my mouth. "You'd give it to me first? You arse."

"Age before beauty," he chuckled.

"No, no, no," I said gallantly. "You need it more than I do. Carrying me around like that."

"Oh, I insist, sir," he attempted to out-gallant me. "Honour me!" Sakata made a show of bowing his head rigidly, mushroom held aloft. For all intents and purposes, he might have been offering me a ceremonial cup of tea.

Unwisely, I laughed. The pain shot through my limbs, and caused a fit of coughing. This was even worse. Each squeeze of my chest muscles felt as though I would rip along the seams. Warmth spread over my side as the cut in my side drooled blood. Sakata dropped the mushroom immediately and came over to wipe spit, bile and, I assumed, blood from my chin. There was little else he could do. It was a good few minutes before the fit stopped; another few before I could breathe normally again.

"Don't argue with me," I told him weakly. "Or I'll do that again."

He chuckled without feeling, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like "pain-loving fuck".

"Give me that mushroom," I sighed finally. Sakata obeyed, and I chewed listlessly. I was so far from hunger that the thought of food only nauseated me but there was no point in pretending it did not make sense for me to try the thing first. Then I saw him flip another mushroom into his mouth.

"What are you doing? Spit that out! Give me at least a few moments to-"

"Nah," he cut me off stubbornly. "They're fine."

Ready to croak from day one, I heard Hashimoto's voice ring out again. The thought coiled in the back of my head like a headache. Actually, I did have a headache – no amount of alien drugs could do much for a bullet wound to the skull. Neither could they do very much about the creeping realization of how my ribs poked into my abdomen like stakes; how my right hand would not move because there was nothing left there to move it. I didn't want to think about it, though. Sakata pushed another mushroom into my mouth wordlessly. He used a spare rag – piece of my old clothes, I realized – to pluck the other metal canister from the fire. I watched him pour some of his birch tea into the canister top and blow over its surface. "Gotta learn all kinds of skills, growing up in the streets," he commented, clocking my gaze.

"This includes herbal remedies?" I asked. "And field surgery?"

Sakata merely snorted. "Here, take a sip." He inclined my head and waited while I slurped obediently. The liquid was bitter. I desperately kept myself from gagging.

I watched him withdraw back into his seat while something clicked in my head. A corner piece of the puzzle which, for the first time since I had met this man, started to give me an idea about his shape. "You are an orphan, right?"

"Ten points, Ca'tain." He smirked in that irksome, secretive way, and said nothing more. I couldn't even tell whether my questions bothered him

By the time we finished our meal, and Sakata forced more bitter tea down my throat, the storm had passed, leaving behind a deep blue peppered with silver stars, just beyond the mouth of the cave. Spent, exhausted, deflated, I stared at that patch of night until I drifted to sleep. I did not dream.

* * *

 _This took longer than I had planned. Much longer. I have trouble finishing stories, you may have noticed, and my rather hectic schedule over the last few months did not help with that. Once upon a time, I had a very clear idea about how it was all supposed to end, but those ideas have been constantly evolving without my consent._

 _I am back on track now - I hope - so please stick with me for another chapter, and that will be that. I promise. In the meanwhile, reviews and comments are appreciated!_

 _[1]_ _Yamamoto Tsunetomo (1659-1719) wrote in his Hagakure, "_ _Bushido is realized in the presence of death. This means choosing death whenever there is a choice between life and death. There is no other reasoning._ _"_ _Hashimoto paraphrases it in Mikuni's memory._

 _[2]_ _"_ _The purpose of a warrior is to grasp his sword and die," was originally a quote from another samurai philosopher, Katou Kiyomasa._


	8. Chapter 8

**See you there, part 3**

The morning revealed broken trees all around us. Sakata canned the birch tea, and made me swallow another Amanto pill. I complained, but really, I was glad for it. My headache was worse than last night, and I could feel all the rips and tears in my side and arm. I tried to help him mount me on his back but the attempt only resulted in several minutes of coughing and intense pain. He wiped my chin for me again. I could see blood on it this time, like a dark gash in the fabric. Oh, well. We both agreed I should not try to help him again.

The rains had left deep mud and slippery ground. Our progress – what is to say, Sakata's progress – was even slower and more laborious. Every now and again his sword brushed against my useless, numb legs, and I felt intense shame. I would soothe my mind by thinking about my corner piece. Of course he was an orphan. Of course he was a street kid! I had been able to hear it in his accent since day one; see it in his utter disrespect for any tradition. I thought again of him sitting on the walkway of my father's old school, feet hanging bare above the snow. The same curiosity I had felt then was my consolation now. I squinted at the wavy horizon behind us and tried to think of ways to ask Sakata about all of these things. I had been tempted to do so many times before but it had never been appropriate. Hell. Dying men did not have to be appropriate.

By noon, I realized that something was wrong with my eyes. My vision was cloudy, as though I was stuck in perpetual dusk even though I could feel the sun beating down on my face. Sakata's back was moist from his sweat, but my body felt cold. I did not mention any of this to him until he felt me shivering.

"You mean like, everything's going black? Do you see a tunnel?" He stared into my eyes as though he would see what I saw.

"No, you dumbass. It's all foggy." I wished I could move my left arm far enough around to smack him over the head but I had only recently become able to move it at all.

"You have the fever again," he sighed, pulling out the last of his Amanto drugs. "It's OK, Cat'ain. We're almost at the rendezvous. There'll be a proper doctor with the unit, and a field hospital." He squinted at the road before us. His hair stuck to his forehead and grime was once again mixing with his sweat to run down his face like black tears. I accepted a handful of wineberries he had found along the way, and munched, watching my most ferocious soldier stuff his face with fruit until it stained him from ear to ear, every inch the street kid I now knew him to be. In my dream, Hashimoto had said samurai searched for a perfect death, but surely, at least in times of peace, samurai were much more than that. They wrote poetry, and arranged flowers, and drank tea, and stared at trees. I snorted, trying to imagine either of us doing so. Sakata had a peculiar way with words; he twisted them so that they suddenly meant something else. It was the quality of a philosopher, yet I could hardly imagine him bending over an old scroll to ponder its contents. In fact, I was not ever sure he could read all that well.

"Sakata Gintoki," I mumbled. "That's a strange name."

"Yeah. S'ppose so," he shrugged, berry juice colouring his teeth. "Yours' not that much better. Mikkun."

"Your balls need to drop before you get to call me that, kid," I snorted. "Who gave you your name?"

He shrugged once more. "Same sort of people who give names to stray dogs."

And feed them scraps from their kitchens, I guessed. "And your surname?"

"My, aren't we talkative. You win another berry."

Sakata crouched over me to fit some more wineberries into my mouth. Their tart taste felt like needles on my tongue. "You are sure these are not poisonous?" I joked weakly.

"Yep. I've eaten'em plenty of times," he said, settling back into his place. Talk to me, I wanted to beg him. There was entirely too much darkness around me. I was afraid to slip into it again. There would be no bringing me back if I did.

Perhaps he had seen that wish in the lines of my pale face, for he surprised me by going on. "Mushrooms aside, slumdogs have to have a pretty good handle on what they can eat. One of many other things you pretty, pampered poofs didn't have to learn."

"Like?"

Sakata grimaced mockingly. "Microeconomics. Urban architecture, human resources, prelaw, erm… property redistribution. Resource management in general, really." By his cynical grin, I figured he was talking about thievery, burglary, squatting, begging, fencing, and other things I had seen kids of war resort to again and again. "Yep. Regular fucking renaissance man, I am."

I smacked my dry lips. "How does a slumdog end up here?"

"Swung my dick too far out."

My crooked frown guided his gaze to the black scabbard leaning on his thigh. "A slumdog doesn't just get to learn to swing the way you do, no matter how big his dick is. How'd you end up in Shouka Sonjuku?"

Sakata took a moment to feed me another berry. I studied his face but it was the usual one: placid, bored, opaque. "Master Shoyou took me in," he said easily.

This was the first time I heard that name fall from his lips, I realized. In fact, all of Yoshida's students barely mentioned him. Some thought it was indifference or even resentment. I knew better. I remembered Katsura's voice almost cracking back in that temple when I had first met them. Whatever else they were, Yoshida's students were not indifferent towards him. I tried to relate but my newly found hate for Hashimoto made it difficult. It occurred to me that whatever Yoshida had meant to Katsura, he had to be that much more to Sakata. A father? I couldn't really relate to this either so I ended up clearing my throat awkwardly.

"When, eh, when was this?" I finally squeezed out.

Sakata twirled his canister top around to slurp some water from it. "Five, six years ago. Oh, actually, a bit more."

"Huh." I said stupidly. He had been only a child. He was still so very young…

Sakata gave me to drink and spoke in a softer tone, staring meditatively at the treetops. "I was surprised you guys knew about the school, though. I thought it was at the end of the world. We walked for weeks to get to it. From around Edo, all the way to Hagi," he added, by way of explanation. "Master Shoyou carried me on his back for the last part of the way. I must have stunk worse than you do, Ca'tain. Although I was a lot lighter."

His face seemed bare now even though he had not changed expression at all. I wondered how I had ever mistaken his calm for laziness, or his patience for lack of feeling.

Sakata walked on until sunset, me, strapped to his back like a giant, smelly backpack. I tried not to think, like a dead weight. I could tell he was exhausted. He was breathing as loudly as I was, although with significantly less wheezing, rasping and gurgling. He did not complain, though. He was ignoring his body with all its aches and pains the same way I was trying to ignore mine. We spent the night out in the open, high up on the mountain. A fresh, gentle wind carried distant smells of the sea on it: salt, stone, seaweed. I could no longer make an educated guess which province we were in. The mountain ranges on either side of us were nameless to me, as was the river halving the valley below us. Our ill-fated battlefield and all my dead soldiers could have been to the north of us, or the south; it was all the same to me. Sakata had been stubbornly putting one foot in front of the other since day one, saying her was getting us to the rendezvous point, but I was not so sure he had the first clue what he was doing anymore. It seemed to me that we were on some hellish journey from nothing to nowhere. It would only end when I finally died. I was so tired but my head was splitting down the middle and I could not sleep. Even worse, I could feel my lungs filling with fluid again, making each tiny gasp for air excruciating. I was desperately trying to keep myself from coughing. The fever was indeed back, shaking my useless limbs with pent up adrenaline. I concentrated on breathing and tried not to disturb Sakata. He, in turn, lay on his back, eyes closed, and not fooling me at all. After a while, we both dropped the pretence.

"I do not think I was meant to be samurai," I whispered.

"I think you're pretty good at it. You have the fatalism down like nobody's business," he murmured back, indulging me.

I shook my head weakly. "I don't like killing."

Sakata laughed darkly. "You're definitely in the wrong line of work, Ca'tain."

I had to take several breaths just to finish a sentence and it was frustrating me. I wanted to talk. "I do not believe in being indebted to a master who cares nothing for me and mine. I do not believe that loyalties owed to principles before they are to people."

Sakata took a moment before saying, "This is not what I was taught.

I smiled weakly. "Yes. Yoshida always had his own definitions. I wish I had met him.

Sakata stayed silent for a long time. I had the impression he wanted to tell me I might yet meet him, but could not bring himself to say something like that. Whether because he lacked the gall to tell me I would not die here, or the confidence that he would ever see his Master again, I could not be sure. I wished I could see the night sky, but my vision was almost entirely grey.

When Sakata spoke again, his voice was filled with quiet resolve and gentleness. If I did not know him, I would say it was reverent. "Samurai kill. They also let people live. They serve masters and principles. But these are the masters and principles they have chosen for themselves. And themselves is whom they owe loyalty." He paused for a long moment, sounding so heartbreakingly fragile that I did not even dare breathe. "Master Shoyou said that. If that is all you ever learn of him, you could still say you have met him."

I smiled through my pain. "Where is your master now?" I asked him.

He cleared his throat. "Imprisoned in Edo, still awaiting trial. The government has bigger issues to deal with at the moment," he added with a nasty lilt in his voice. Bigger issues, like us and our rebellion.

"We do try our best to be a big issue," I snorted, gripping onto black humour. It helped.

"Yeah, you do," he agreed.

So Sakata did not count himself among us, not even after everything that we've been through together. The thought caught in the fragmented net of my consciousness like a stray fish. He was with my unit, but not part of it. I had always known it, the same way I had always known I was never his commander. This was what had bothered Kuramoto so. Strangely, it had not bothered me once. I was too feverish to think about what that meant, if anything at all. Instead I thought of Yoshida, the brilliant, irreverent, indescribable sword-master, wasting away in some putrid cell in Edo. Was he still the man Sakata and his friends remembered from Hagi? I had never been caught by the government, never imprisoned by our enemies, but I had a pretty good idea what happened to those that were. Did he have use of his body, or had they thought him too dangerous and decided to crush its strength and grace? And what of his mind? That was surely the more dangerous thing…

"Trial for treason," I murmured.

"Yeah."

"Do you think he is still alive?" Do you think he is still himself? I could not bring myself to ask that. Sakata heard it nevertheless.

He was silent for a moment, as though making up his mind. "Oh, yes," he said stubbornly. "He is waiting for us."

This time I knew exactly which "us" he meant, and I was not part of it. It was, and always had been, Takasugi, Katsura, and him.

And so it finally occurred to me why he was in this war.

XXXX

The morning was cool and moist. I had not realized I had fallen asleep at all until Sakata's careful fretting woke me up. Once more, he strapped me to his back – for the last time, he promised – and started his stubborn trudge onwards. It was downhill today. I thought it might be easier for him, but this quickly proved to be a stupid assumption. Sakata's stumbling was worse than ever as the soft, wet earth slipped and crumbled underneath his feet. Every time he had to jerk and jolt to regain his balance, I thought my insides would spill out between my legs. There was no improvement to my vision. I thought I had gone completely blind until Sakata told me there was low cloud enveloping us, and he could barely see as well. It calmed me down somewhat. My right eye was marginally better off than the left, but it too saw mostly shady outlines against a misty background. At least the mist was real.

Sakata was truly in a bad way now. His sweat was cold and his muscles shook uncontrollably every time he stopped moving. I could smell his wound; it must have become infected. He kept up a running commentary despite his laboured breathing. It was as much for his benefit as it was for mine. I could only respond in grunts and mumbles. The weight of my own ribcage was too much for my lungs, and they allowed nothing but short, shallow gulps of air. I lost consciousness a few times only to find both of us lying on our sides like some strange conjoined twins, Sakata patiently waiting for the blood to rush back into my head. He gave me no silly assurances or hollow consolations, merely got back up and continued talking. Rhythmic, inane chatter. It kept me awake. It kept me alive.

"Sakamoto is entirely obsessed with Amanto tech. It's actually not all bad. Did you know they have machines that crap out any drink you want? Press a button and poof!"

"Hrrmh."

"I should learn how to swim one of these days. Not my favourite activity. We're not made for it. Look at monkeys. Buggers stay out of water like they do out of fire. Surprisingly reasonable animals."

"Mmrm."

"We're almost there. The terrain is evening out."

"Grrgrn."

"Never took to smoking. Takasugi's mad for it. I swear he makes those batshit commandos of his raid towns just to get some snuff. That's misuse of power, right? Should be court-martialled for it or something."

"Hhn, ygrrh."

"You're the most talkative bastard I've ever met, Mikkun."

"Ffkh ynu."

"I totally understood that."

"Mrm."

"Wish this mist would clear."

"Pff."

"It's alright. We're practically at the camp now. They're gonna shit themselves when we show up. If Katsura tears up, you owe me money, Ca'tain. Deal?"

"Nnh."

I waited for the next senseless comment but there was nothing. The terrain was even and the trees opened up into a clearing. I could smell a river somewhere to our right. It was a perfect place for a camp. I didn't hear anything; not horses, not men, certainly not an army.

"Erm," Sakata mumbled. He set me down carefully. He ground was cold, thick and moist. "I'll scout ahead," he told me in a whisper.

"Rhhgh," I observed. Lying down made it easier to breathe but by the time I could beg him to stay by my side, Sakata was already gone. I knew what was wrong. There was no camp. Nobody was at the rendezvous point. Of course they weren't! They had left us. There was no rendezvous point. That is, if we were in the right place to begin with…

Sakata must have been thinking the same thing, for he came back into view, crouching above me a few moments later. "We're where we're supposed to be," he said, but I could hear the doubt in his voice.

They left us, I wanted to tell him. They didn't show up where they were supposed to, when I really needed them to show up. Why would they be here now?

The ground seemed to vibrate beneath me. Muddy water drenched my borrowed, soiled clothes, chilling me to the bone.

"Are you sure, we're," it was annoyingly difficult to talk, "at the right, spot?"

"Hmm," he not-answered.

I could swear there was a quiet earthquake going on. Then I heard a tumult in the background. I had thought it was only blood rushing through my swollen head, but as it got louder, closer, I realized what it was.

"Shit," Sakata swore. He had realized it too. "Oh, come on. Come ON! You gotta be kidding me."

Footfall of soldiers was entirely unmistakeable. Metallic clanging of their equipment was as familiar to me as my own heartbeat. It jingled determinedly in our direction, like wolves smelling blood. I heard Sakata pull himself up to his feet with a despondent groan. "Fucking perfect."

Two days ago he had killed a small group of Amanto scavengers. Honestly, it had been a superhuman feat then but it was plain impossible now. Besides, whatever was coming for us this time was much bigger, better organized.

I grabbed his ankle blindly and found my voice, "Gintoki. Go. This time. Just go."

He said nothing. I heard his blade slip out of its sheath like a breath of death.

"For fuck sake's, boy! GO!"

There was a proper unit of them coming, five dozen men at least. I could tell by the vibrations of the ground. They carried no supplies, no heavy artillery, but their synchronized run told me volumes of their battle readiness. They would plough over us without skipping a beat. Overkill, really.

"Stop trying to…" hassling Sakata's ankle, I looked for words to chase him away, but how do you chase away a fearless man? "Stop… You are not the almighty! Don't do this to me for a third time, Sakata! Don't you dare!"

The tendon in his foot tightened and slipped my grip gently.

"Sorry, Captain."

He stepped to the front, not going anywhere. I screamed at him, growled, flailed around with my one free arm. My broken bones complained miserably, but I paid them no mind, just as Sakata paid no mind to me. How many miracles did he think he had in him? Why waste what could be the last one on me? That moron, that idiot, that…

The war machine before us slowed down, surrounding us. Sakata inhaled through his nose, exhaled through his mouth. His feet shifted apart in the gravel. I fell silent as well, blind to what was happening, and powerless to prevent it.

"Gintoki?" I heard. It took me a moment to recognize the voice. "Is that you?"

It had taken Sakata even longer. "Shinsuke?" he mewled. "Wh-?"

Rapid footsteps echoed over the ground as Takasugi ran to his friend. I turned my head to see the outlines of two figures gripping each other's forearms. "What are you-?" both began at the same time.

"We were looking for you."

"That's my line," Sakata breathed. He gulped. "Captain's not doing so well. He needs help."

Takasugi must have signalled his men for two of them suddenly appeared on either side of me, kneeling and cooing. They flipped me onto a gurney. I melted from relief, not for myself, but for Sakata. As they took me away, I looked to where he stood with Takasugi just in time to see him stumble and drop to his knees, his friend following suit. The tense circle of soldiers jerked forward fretfully.

"It's alright," Takasugi overrode them. "Get the Captain to the camp. It's alright, it's alright."

He was no longer speaking to his men.

"It's alright."

The words echoed in my mind while four strong, rested, young soldiers hopped through the forest, carrying me. I wished Sakata was with me, but I could not even hear his voice among the rattle of military noises. Takasugi's soldiers stopped every now and again to make sure I was still breathing, ask me stupid questions like "Are you feeling alright, sir?", and tell me repeatedly that we were almost there. All that fuss, and for what? No amount of field hospitals could help me, and I knew that well enough. They still tried, assembled surgeons talking about shaving a part of my skull clean off. Apparently, congealed blood was pressing on my brain, causing my loss of vision. I was not eager to try it. I saw it go terribly badly, leave men flat and flaccid like corpses. Honestly, it was nothing to celebrate even if it went well. Just a lot of pain for a hole in your head. There was also the matter of my ribs and right arm. I lost consciousness from the pain when they pried open Sakata's bandages. I just wanted them to stop. I had made it this far. I got back from the battlefield. Wasn't that enough? Surely that was enough even for Sakata.

Katsura tried to discuss it with me. His face was a disassembled collection of shapes and vectors to me but I immediately recognized the long, dark hair. In that calm, cultured tone, he did his best to convince me Takasugi's surgeons knew what they were doing. The only thing I wanted to know was what had happened. Where had they gone? Why had they not come to the battle? Where was Hashimoto? Eventually, Katsura relented. I must have looked mangled enough for he pulled a stool nearer to my bed and spoke in a low, quick voice.

"It was our fault, Captain. We were too slow. General Hashimoto," if he had been a more vulgar man, he would have added something to that title, I could tell. "Got word the Amanto were setting a trap. He was afraid it would be a repeat of the Mutsu fiasco. He ordered us to march out. Before we figured out what was happening, half the army was pointing in the wrong direction, and the other half was miles away already."

"Ah," I grunted. I thought I would feel more bitter, more livid. I didn't feel a thing. My anger with Hashimoto was, strangely, spent.

Katsura's was not. I heard him swallow. "We were too slow on the uptake. By the time we regrouped… Takasugi took scouts all the way to the battlefield, but we didn't find... We found…"

I knew exactly what they found. "How'd you get, Hashimoto to, let you scout?" I wanted to know.

"We didn't," Katsura said simply. "We parted ways with the general."

"Oh." Insubordination was contagious, Itou had been right after all. I smirked. "Who's the, general now?"

I could practically hear Katsura blush. "I am."

"Good. Knew you had, it in you."

Katsura sniffled. Mercy, he really did tear up. Sakata won our bet. Which reminded me…

"How, is Sakata?" I managed to squeeze out.

Katsura seemed confused. "He's fine. Wound's clean."

"Not, what I meant."

"I know."

"I want, to talk to, him."

"Captain, you need to re-," he changed his mind midsentence. "Yes, sir."

Sir, hah! The little bastard outranked me now, technically. I decided not to point that out.

Time stretched like snot. My body was heavy. I had absolutely no inclination to move. Sometimes I heard the noises of the camp acutely, viscerally, and they anchored me. Other times I got lost in my own head and found my hearing only when I remembered to listen. A physician came and went. As he pussyfooted around me, I realized this man had chosen to follow Katsura and Takasugi. They had given him a choice, and he elected to leave his commander and follow these boys. So had every man out there, in fact. I was at awe with their bravery, or their stupidity. Actually, I was ready to admit to myself that these two were the same thing.

I wondered whether I would have stayed with Hashimoto or followed Yoshida's students. What would once have been an impossible question now answered itself with terrible ease. It settled something inside me. Sakata said loyalty was what samurai owed to themselves, not merely to the master they had chosen for themselves. Maybe I was not such a bad samurai after all. I was certainly becoming more and more realized. If I lived any longer, I might even write a poem about it.

I played around with it in my head, composing lines as my mind was drifting, when I heard Sakata's drawl spill over my makeshift medical tent, "You look like shit, Ca'tain."

"Hrnhh," I chuckled. "Right back, at you."

"Your vision's back?" he asked, coming closer.

"Nah. I just, assume you look like, usual."

"Touche. That what you called me here for?"

"Hmm," I sighed. "It's a real hustle, out there."

"Sure is," Sakata agreed. He seated himself on the same stool Katsura had used and leaned on his knees. "There's quite a few people out there, actually."

"So you're, gonna make a bid for, Edo? For Yoshida?" I asked.

Sakata must have debated with himself whether or not to discuss strategy with me. He made the right call. "Eventually. We have to reorganize first. Build up our forces, raise some hell."

"Make, big issues." My voice sounded far away.

"That's the idea."

"You won't escape command, this time. Private," I told him.

He snorted in response. "I'll leave that to Grand General Zura."

"Told you, he'd not stay at the back, of the bus," I mumbled.

"Hmm," he chuckled. "You called it. Apparently, he went at it with Hashimoto. Sakamoto had to pull them apart."

"Oh?" Sakata's outline was a less and less visible. A faded shadow on a whitewashed wall.

"Good thing too. If Zura hadn't exploded before Shinsuke showed up, there would have been a total bloodbath. Shoulda court-martialled him while there was still a chance." There was warmth beneath his flippancy.

"Pro'lly," I agreed. "Sakafuck, is here too?" I could no longer hear the sounds of the camp, even if I concentrated on them. I could only hear Sakata's voice.

"Of course."

"Of course," I nodded. It came out garbled.

"It's actually not just Tatsuma. Plenty of the old captains decided to follow Zura. Hoping for instant promotions, perhaps."

"Haps."

"You just called me here to watch you die, didn't you?"

"Wh?"

"I said, bet you wish you were a fly on the wall when Zura went bananas, though. I know I do."

"Hhn."

"Must have been quite a match. Hashimoto's twice Zura's size, but Zura can be a dirty fighter. Wouldn't think it by looking at him."

"Neh."

"Yeah, dust in the eyes, hair-pulling, below-the-belt dirty. Zura's the meanest little prick I know in a fist fight."

I could no longer move my mouth. It was alright, it did not bother me. I was at peace, listening to Sakata go on, grunting every now and then. Who knew he could be this talkative! It took some doing, though. Few days of slow dying, and he opens up like a flower. I wanted to tell him we should have talked like this a year ago. I wanted to tell him I would have loved to see Katsura go at it in a bare-knuckle match. I wanted to tell him I was sorry I wound not make it. It had been an honour to have met him. Not in that stuffy, samurai way, but in the way two friends were honoured to have met each other. But really, there was only one thing I really wanted to tell the man patiently keeping me company while I breathed my final breaths.

If I had never learned a thing about Yoshida Shoyou, and knew only that you were his student, I could still say I had met him.

But I could not move my mouth. It was alright. It did not bother me. I was at peace-

THE END

 _Which it kind of isn't. There is an epilogue because I am a sap, and I could not leave it there, but this is the end of Mikuni's story. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope it made sense. As ever, I am looking forward to your comments._

 _Cheers to all of you who have stuck with me to the end._


	9. Chapter 9

**Epilogue**

Kagura ran full tilt at the large white dog bristling dangerously, hind paws almost touching the cold shallows of the lake behind it. She let out a primal scream, burying her fist into the soft earth. The force of the impact echoed through the ground, sending jets of soil upwards, and ripping the calm surface of the water beyond into agitated waves. Had Sadaharu been any slower, she would have crushed his skull. As it was, he jumped to the side, already angling his body for a counterattack.

"Shinpachi, now!" Kagura shouted. She needn't have, for Shinpachi was already burying his shoulder into Sadaharu's side. Full American football gear, complete with caged helmet and assorted pads, made him seem bigger and more powerful than he really was but Sadaharu was not fooled. His feet found the ground, and he pushed against Shinpachi, forcing their tug-of-war to a tense halt.

"Kaguraaaaa!" Shinpachi called, teeth working against his jaw.

"Yeah," Kagura grunted in response and, before Sadaharu could react, swiped the dog's hind legs from beneath him. Sadaharu shuffled gracelessly for a moment, trying to regain his footing, but Shinpachi switched gears. Head low and leg muscles working, he took advantage of Sadaharu's stumble, finally pushing the dog into the lake. The water muddied beneath his large paws, as he looked for a way around his two pursuers. Kagura and Shinpachi had chosen their battleground well – Sadaharu was surrounded by a stone wall of the bridge on one side, and a thicket of willows and reeds on the other side. He could only charge them or retreat further into the lake.

"Quickly, get him into deeper water!" Shinpachi ordered.

Barefoot, Kagura jumped into the shallows and attacked, describing violent half-moons with her umbrella as she aimed for the dog. Sadaharu eyed the strange weapon, dodging it, but refusing to give ground. Kagura feigned a swipe for his head, then thrust the tip of the umbrella forwards as though it was a fencer's foil. She stopped it mere inches from Sadaharu's forehead, popping it open right in front of his face.

Momentarily blinded, Sadaharu was broadsided by Shinpachi once more and, in a spectacular tackle, they both flew a few feet backwards. The sloping bottom of the lake gave way under their limbs, and boy and dog were suddenly submerged to their waists.

While Shinpachi spluttered, Sadaharu was already gearing for vengeance. "Kag-," he called when a large paw dunked him into the water mercilessly.

In the meanwhile, Kagura grabbed a bucket of shampoo and, screaming, launched it at the two struggling figures in the lake. Sadaharu released Shinpachi long enough to fend off the projectile but the bucket flipped, spilling slimy contents all over his fur.

"Mrrrh," he protested, closing his eyes against the cherry-scented chemicals.

Kagura seized the chance and mounted the dog, rubbing his back and sides forcefully. A few metres away, Shinpachi surfaced, coughing. After some heavy breathing, he pattered to the shore, shedding cumbersome football gear. Sighing, he swam back to Kagura to assist her in giving Sadaharu a bath. The dog struggled for a few moments more, but his resistance was weakening. Once they succeeded in shampooing him, Sadaharu knew he had little choice but to let them wash it out. Grumbling, he settled while Kagura and Shinpachi splashed around him, working through the kinks in his fur, massaging his haunches, and cleaning the grime on his belly. It wasn't all that bad, actually…

"There has to be an easier way to do this," Shinpachi mumbled unhappily.

"It would be easier if Ginchan helped," Kagura answered, rather loudly and probably for the seventh time that morning.

"Your dog, you clean his shit," an even voice called from the shore.

"He's only my dog if you're not sticking your feet in his butt when you're cold, right!" Kagura screamed back in annoyance. "He's only my dog if you're not hitching a ride on his back when you're drunk, right!"

"No, he's your dog even if I am drunk and up his butt," Gintoki answered. He was not fifteen feet away from them, lying prone on a patch of grass, and utterly disinclined to move. A copy of the Weekly Shonen Jump shielded his eyes from the sunlight. "And he's especially your dog when he chews on all my boots. And the fridge. And the sofa. And the wall in the bathroom."

"He is teething," Kagura protested, scratching Sadaharu under the chin. Shinpachi noticed the dog's eyes close in what looked suspiciously like pleasure.

Gintoki thumbed the Jump higher to regard the scene dispassionately. "There ain't space for no more teeth in that head, Kagura, dear. Believe me, I've seen it up close. Not unless that thing is in fact a furry shark."

"Lazy asshole!" Kagura called over her shoulder. "You're just a lazy asshole, right!"

"Ginssan, really," Shinpachi agreed with her. "He's not my dog either but I'm helping."

"You're just a sucker for her baby blues," Gintoki surmised, letting the Jump slip back into place. "I told you what would happen if you don't learn how to say no to women, Patch Adams. But do you listen? Nope. Well, there you have it."

Irked, Shinpachi grunted, attempting to right his glasses. He only succeeded in smudging them with soapy water. "It's difficult enough with the two of us. Kagura alone could not possibly do it. And Sadaharu was really reeking. Every time I walked into the office, it was like sniffing a hot Turkish urinal. Look, his fur is all cluttered with garbage."

Gintoki shrugged. "Told you to shave the thing off."

"I can't shave it all off!" Kagura screamed in indignation. "How would that look?"

"Shave what now?" a fourth voice intruded.

Shinpachi stopped running his fingers over Sadaharu's mud-encrusted rump to look to the shore. The dog gave a small mewl of protest the moment the scratching stopped. Sneaky little bugger. Meanwhile, a young man in a black uniform was coming down from the footpath and towards them, hands in his pockets, a red sleeping mask hanging around his neck. He wore a sword at his belt, black scabbard glistening in the noon sunlight. From the nonchalant way it rolled against his hip with each step, one could almost be forgiven for thinking it was little more than decoration; a fashion statement. Shinpachi knew better.

"The dog, young Souichirou, shave the dog," Gintoki replied to Okita.

"Not a cat?"

"Nope."

"You sure?"

"Hello, Captain Okita," Shinpachi called, feeling somewhat silly under the circumstances. Then again, Okita had surely seen weirder things than two fully clothed teens bathing an enormous dog in the public park, as evidenced by his lazy nod in Shinpachi's direction.

"Hey, sadist," Kagura waved indifferently, working Sadaharu's ears while he murmured happily. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Patrolling," Okita told her. "What the hell are you doing to that poor animal?"

"Washing him, right, what's it look like?" Kagura snapped at him.

"Looks like a wet T-shirt contest," Okita stated.

"Between the two of them, you don't know who's worse equipped for it," Gintoki snorted. "All the way from the Fugly Salt Flats, presenting the Itty Bitty Titty Committee's Miss Concave and Mister Boy-band."

"What was that, Pube-head?" Kagura snapped, already lunging for the shore. Sadaharu groaned, neglected yet again. "What you said?"

"Calm down, Kagura," Shinpachi called. "Let's just finish this as quickly as possible so we can go home."

"Shut it, Boy-band!" she hissed at him.

"Hey, I'm on your side!"

"That's right, China, get to it, get to it," Okita sung out, seating himself on the grass next to Gintoki with a soft sigh. "And if you're gonna shave anything, might want to trim your pu-"

"Skipping work again, young Souichirou?" Gintoki wisely interrupted before Okita could escalate his feud with Kagura to unsafe levels.

"Not at all, Master," Okita said, removing the Jump from Gintoki's face boldly. "I was actually looking for you."

Gintoki squinted at him, searching the young face for clues. As usual, placid eyes and a vaguely upturned mouth told him little. "To what do I owe the honour?" he drawled, extending a hand for Okita to return his reading material.

Obediently, Okita surrendered the Jump, at the same time dipping into his breast pocket to retrieve several official-looking pieces of paper. He unfolded them against his knee and offered them for inspection. Gintoki elbowed the ground and raised himself up for a cursory look. The writing was fancy, dense, old-fashioned and utterly unintelligible. The text brimmed with serious sounding phrases that spoke volumes but said very little. The seals at the bottom were, however, unmistakeably bureaucratic.

"No idea what that says," Gintoki said after a moment of staring at it.

"It's a standard confidentiality agreement," Okita explained.

Gintoki's nose furrowed. "Like when I tell you my soft limits and my hard limits? I'll say this right now, but scat-play is totally out of bounds for me."

"Yeah, exactly like that but totally different."

"Oh. Thanks for not clearing that up at all."

Okita twisted the documents in his hand and glanced over them. There was a trace of disgust as he spoke, "With this you stipulate that you will refrain from discussing with any legal person information obtained in the last month and a half which pertains to the internal structure, interpersonal relationships, and recent activities of any and all members of the Shinsengumi and the Mimawarigumi. This includes attitudes and opinions expressed in private conversation as well as your personal observations."

"I love it when you talk dirty, Shoutarou," Gintoki blinked at him.

"Master, I'm not screwing around," Okita sighed. "They are giving you the opportunity to sign it like a good boy but I should tell you they are more than willing to make this into a proper super-injunction."

"Sorry, don't speak legalese," Gintoki shrugged stubbornly.

"Higher-up's wanna be sure you're not gonna go blabbing around about the shit that went down a few weeks back," Okita translated. "In return, they forget you were there, all neat and clean like it never happened. No rooftop mambo, no broken buildings, no bad rap battles. That's as far as Commander Kondo could swing it."

"Now, now. Near or far, big or small, in the end it's all about how you swing it," Gintoki pontificated, lying back down. "Moreover, I don't need no gorilla batting in my Little League, even if he comes equipped with the Eifel Tower. Consider that another hard limit."

There was a bit of exasperation in Okita's tone now. "Please, Master. Just sign the damn thing and everybody can go home happy. Most importantly, me."

"I'm not signing shit," Gintoki went on flatly. "You could be making all this up, making me sign organ donation cards, or blank checks. Or a prenup. Shinji, a prenup I ask you? Is that the sort of woman you think I am?"

Okita snorted, his humour tickled even despite himself. "I knew you would say that."

"About the prenup?"

"I knew you wouldn't want to sign. No matter what sort of deal they threw your way."

Gintoki crossed his hands behind his head and stared into the lake, lazy eyes passing over the two teenagers still battling dog fur and foam. Okita followed his gaze. Shimura appeared to have lost his glasses and was now diving to retrieve them, while China mercilessly continued to splash water into his face every time he surfaced. He could not be sure, but it seemed to Okita that a ghost of a smile tightened Gintoki's lips and relaxed his eyebrows.

"Tell them that if they want to slap a gag order on me, they'll need Zed's red balls and all the shebang."

"I am not sure they will get that reference, Master."

"I am sure you will explain it to them. Vividly."

Okita grunted unhappily. "It's not that simple. If this was just our internal thing, I wouldn't even be asking. But the Mimawarigumi are fancy little cunts, Master, and their reputation still means something to them. They want to be sure no slumdog's gonna lift his leg against their gates."

Gintoki shifted in the grass, turning his gaze to the trees. "I'm not gonna go barking to anyone, you can tell them that as well. As long as they don't darken my kennel ever again. That good enough?"

Okita smiled, folding the documents back into their original shape carefully. "Probably not, but we'll make do. Worst case scenario, I'll fake your seal."

Gintoki chuckled. "How'd you ever become a policeman, young Souichirou?"

"Cosmic joke."

"The universe does have a rather dark sense of humour," he concluded, closing his eyes.

Okita huffed a soft laugh and leaned on his knees, looking at the lively scene in the lake. Shimura had found his glasses but was at present being bullied deeper and deeper into the lake by Sadaharu, finally clean, and Kagura, who was riding on his back like an ice-queen astride her trusty polar bear. Her red dress stuck to her boyish curves, splitting over her pale thighs and inciting Okita's imagination, but he stopped himself. Instead, he picked a grass flower. Stripping it of the outer layer, he put the light green end in his mouth and suckled on it.

"Master Freelancer?"

There was a short pause during which Okita suspected Gintoki had drifted off to sleep, but then the older man grunted, "Hnn?"

"I looked him up in our files," Okita spoke slowly, pretending nonchalance he did not truly feel. "The White Demon."

This time the pause was fractionally longer, Okita thought. "Archive work, Souichirou? They demoted you or what?"

Okita huffed a laugh through his nose. "It made for interesting reading," he shrugged.

Gintoki's eyes were stubbornly closed, face relaxed, and had Okita not been an accomplished swordsman himself, he would not have detected any change in his posture at all. As it was, he could see Gintoki's shoulders were very still.

"What did your files say?"

"Not much, really," Okita confided, resting backwards against his hands. "There's plenty on Katsura. Some on Takasugi and a few others. They were generals, they moved men, they took down armies. The White Demon wasn't a general, apparently."

"Oh?" Gintoki drawled. "Fascinating."

"It is," Okita addressed the treetops casually. "He was not a commander, but everybody knew his name."

"Hmm," Gintoki wondered. His breathing was slow and deep. And deliberate.

"Well, I should say, nobody knew his name," Okita amended his statement, faking nonchalance. "But everybody had heard of him. The White Demon. He worked right alongside Katsura and Takasugi, in those last days of the war." He chewed on the blade of grass, giving Gintoki time to react. Idly, Okita wondered whether 'worked' had been the right word to use. These men had bled together. They had killed together. Each day, they had been ready to die together. It wasn't as though they put in eight hours at the office and gossiped around the water-cooler. The Shinsengumi was not exactly a nine-to-five job either, but Okita knew very well that life in a Shogunate-sponsored police force – fed, clothed, housed and armed – could not compare to guerrilla warfare. No, 'worked' had not been the right word to use.

"They must not have liked him too much," Okita continued musing when Gintoki remained mute. "Sent him on all the suicidal missions. And every time, he returned, trailing behind him a mountain of corpses. Sometimes he was the only one to return. He must have liked to cut people down. Seems he was very good at it."

Gintoki slugged the left leg over the right one, and found a more comfortable position. "Sounds like a nasty cunt," he commented offhandedly.

"Yeah, very nasty," Okita agreed and fell silent.

Gintoki stole a look at him, opening one eye warily. Okita's profile was as smooth and as imperturbable as ever. He was fishing for reactions. And what would he do with them if he got them, Gintoki wondered. He knew an interrogation when he heard one, no matter under what guise it came. The only question was whether Okita was interrogating him for the sake of his own curiosity, or for the sake of somebody else's curiosity. Either way, Gintoki would not take the chance. He waited, refusing to rise to the bait.

"Hijikata thinks it was you," the boy spoke. "Claims you said so, up on the roof."

"I wouldn't believe everything that asshole says, young Souichirou," Gintoki answered lightly. "Mayonnaise's addled his brains, if he had any to begin with."

Okita sniggered. "Don't worry, I don't. And I don't think it was you."

"I'm so relieved, I could cry," Gintoki deadpanned and closed his eyes once more.

Next to him, Okita lay back. "I don't really think there was ever any such person as the White Demon. I think he was just a legend."

"How'd'you figure that?" Gintoki inquired. His shoulders were much more relaxed, Okita noticed; his breathing light and natural.

"People like making legends in times of war. They need them, good for morale," he mused. "There were plenty of legends at the time. Loincloth Saigo, the Invulnerable Devil. Mighty Doromizu Jirouchou of Edo," he ticked off. "Takasugi Shinsuke, leader of the Kiheitai. Katsura, the Grand General. What's one more legend, even if it is not true? Gives tired men something to rally around - the undying warrior who always came back, white cape tinted red. Pretty far out stuff."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Gintoki agreed, stifling a yawn.

"More to the point, someone like that must have really hated the Amanto. Must have liked spilling their guts on the battlefield. Must have never wanted to stop doing it. Katsura and Takasugi were like that, and they never stopped. Yet after the war, there was not a peep of this White Demona character anywhere on the grapevine."

"Hmm," Gintoki murmured, one foot rocking gently back and forth, without rhythm.

Okita turned to look at his face. He sometimes forgot that Gintoki was, in fact, the same age as Kondo; older than Hijikata. Only rarely could he see them, his approaching thirty years of life. But there they were now – in the corners of his mouth, between his eyebrows, along the edges of his eyes. "Someone like that would never have quit the war," he said. "Not unless he was fighting a completely different one."

"Good point."

Okita broke into a laugh. Gintoki opened an eye to look at him, eyebrow cocked in question.

Okita sat up, dusting the back of his jacket of grass and dirt. "I didn't really expect you would tell me anything, Master Freelancer. But I am dying of curiosity."

Gintoki shrugged. "You know it all already. White Demon was probably just a legend people made up to make themselves feel better."

Okita caught his gaze and held it. There was a smile playing around his lips, and Gintoki couldn't tell whether it was victorious or resigned. "So why did you say you were him?"

"Strategic decision," Gintoki answered straight away thinking back to the night on the roof, black and white uniforms dancing a deadly dance. "I needed Mayoman to pay attention and follow my lead. I needed the little assholes behind me not to interfere."

"Now you sound like a general," Okita pointed out gently.

"There you have it. White Demon was never a general. You said so yourself."

Okita looked away, back to the lake out of which Kagura and Shinpachi were emerging to towel Sadaharu off. "Yeah. Well, that's what the files say. I never thought generals were generals just because that's what people call them. Generals are generals because people follow them."

"Apparently, the only thing that followed this character was corpses," Gintoki pointed out. "Dawn of the Dead aside, you can't really do shit with a zombie army."

"Hmm," Okita muttered and pushed himself up to stand. His hands found his pockets immediately, betraying a long-standing habit. Gintoki observed the straight curve of his back; the cock-sure stance of a man who did not know his limits. And may he never learn them, Gintoki wished upon the younger man. May he never break his head against the extent of himself.

"Well, Hijikata won't give up," Okita was saying conversationally. "He thinks he has you pinned. On the other hand... the Shogunate's got nothing to fear from a zombie army, right?"

"Right."

"So it's none of our business," he concluded.

"Good for you," Gintoki congratulated.

"One thing, though, Master..." Okita nodded to the wet trio now laughing on the coast. Kagura fluffed her hair out to dry in the sunshine while Shinpachi was trying his best to convince Sadaharu not to lie down in the dust. "The army trailing you nowadays... seems like a pretty frightening thing to me. What happens if you ever decide to take it to war with you?"

"What war?" Gintoki inquired with a snort.

"Whichever it is you are fighting," Okita answered. He turned to look him in the eyes, one brown set staring into two dark red ones.

"Don't worry," Gintoki smiled, closing them. "I am not a general."

 _I've had this scene in my head for a long time - Thorny made quite an impression on me, and stuck stubbornly in my mind, if you'd pardon the pun. I hope you forgive the change of tone and perspective. This chapter was originally supposed to be a beginning of something, but it never grew into it. At some point, while I was writing this story, I went back to it and saw how similar some of the themes were. Ended up rewriting it to be an epilogue, and here we all are._

 _Thank you for all your kind comments! See you next time something prickles my fancy (I'll stop being punny now...). In fact, if you have an idea, a plot bunny, a scene you'd like to see fanfic'ed - share it! Let's see what happens._


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